Going Through Fire for You
by marcallie
Summary: A spree killer in DC seems both focused and confused. The team needs to find him before he kills again . . . particularly because it might be a member of the team that he kills.
1. No Rest

Hotch was the only one still awake during the long flight back from Hawaii. Once the BAU jet had made its refueling stop in Los Angeles, the other members of the team had dropped off rather quickly. JJ and Alex were sitting next to one another, their heads resting against each other in their slumber. Morgan had dozed off with his ear buds in, as usual, and despite his efforts to read, Rossi had also succumbed after the first hour. Reid had claimed the long bench seat so he could stretch out before they even reached California, and no one had felt any urge to move him given that he had spent all of the last three days inside the cramped office of the Honolulu PD working the geographic profile until he had finally narrowed down the UNSUB's comfort zone enough for them to capture the sexual psychopath before he finished his sixth murder. Everyone else had at least gotten to spend some time outside in the brilliant Hawaiian sunshine, impossible not to enjoy despite the circumstances. Reid deserved an uninterrupted nap.

Hotch wished he could sleep too. He was just as tired as everyone else, and he knew he would regret not being better rested when they landed in Quantico, but somehow he couldn't get his brain to slow down enough to allow him to sleep. They were working too hard again; he knew it, but he didn't know what to do about it. Every time they tried to take some time off, they got called back in on a case. The downside to being the best at what you do is that everyone wants – no, needs – the best. He suspected that Cruz would be more understanding of a request for vacation time than Strauss typically had been, but it felt wrong to expect some community to contend with a serial killer longer so that the team could sleep in, lay on the beach . . . visit their girlfriends who lived out of town. Hotch sighed, thinking of yet another weekend with Beth which had gone the way of the job. He imagined how blissful it would be to return to Hawaii with Beth and Jack in tow, to spend a week enjoying the sights, doing all the typical touristy things.

It wasn't until his phone buzzed, interrupting a dream which was somehow blending surfing and swimming with dolphins, that Hotch realized he had finally fallen asleep. He grabbed the offending device from his pocket, glancing around to see that no one else had so much as shifted position at the noise. They truly were exhausted. "Hotchner," he snapped, keeping his voice low to allow his dead to the world team the chance to remain asleep.

"It's Cruz." The accented voice wasted no time. "I know you're not even back yet, but we need you."

"Me? Or the team?"

"Unfortunately, the whole team. On the plus side, you won't have to travel. We have a spree killer here in DC. Nine dead already, and he's speeding up and becoming more violent."

"Sounds bad," Hotch agreed, "but why my team? Can't one of the others . . . ?"

Cruz didn't even let him finish. "We have a witness. At least we have someone who should be a witness, but she can't remember anything useful. Eleven-year-old girl who watched her parents get hacked up when she woke up on the living room couch. She's in protective custody, but she seems to have totally blanked out the attacker's face, body type . . . anything that could help us find him. Or maybe she knows, but she isn't telling. We need a cognitive interview, plus a profile as quickly as we can get one."

Hotch sighed, already planning inside his head. "Get all the information to Penelope Garcia," he instructed Cruz. "We have," he glanced at his watch and did some quick calculations, "about an hour and a half left before we land. We'll start working the profile from here."

"Can't ask for better than that," Cruz said. "When you land, at least let everybody make a quick run home. On top of everything else, we have three or four inches of snow on the ground now, and more expected later tonight. The roads are passable at the moment, but they may not be by this evening. I'm sure you didn't take your cold-weather gear with you to Hawaii, and you may get stuck in the office for a few days. Even though it's a local case, everyone is going to need a new go-bag."

By this time Hotch had nudged Rossi, sleeping across from him, with his foot. When the older man's eyes opened, Hotch gestured for him to turn on the computer so they could link up with their technical analyst. "Yes, sir, I'll do that. See you then," Hotch concluded the phone call.

"You have to be kidding me," Rossi protested as he booted up the laptop sitting on the table between the two men. "We haven't even gotten home yet."

"Sorry, Dave. No rest for the wicked, which means no rest for us." Their voices roused Reid and JJ, who in turn wakened Morgan and Alex.

"Actually, the original quote from Isiah more likely read, 'No PEACE for the wicked,'" Reid informed them as they started to gather around the center seats.

"Looks like we don't get that either," Rossi commented wryly.

At that moment, the laptop screen came to life, showing a decidedly disheveled Penelope Garcia. "Greetings, my lovelies," she acknowledged them with a yawn. "Normally I see myself as more of a Snow White character, but I'm afraid today I am more of a Sleepy, or even a Grumpy."

"As long as you're not the evil Queen, baby girl," Morgan remarked with a grin, allowing her radiance to wake him up a little bit.

"Queen, Chocolate Wonder, but only evil in the nicest sense of the word."

Reid looked confused. "I don't think there is a nice sense to the word evil."

"Ah, Doc," Garcia turned her eyes to him. "Don't worry your little dwarf head about it, or you'll end up feeling Dopey."

"Enough," Rossi demanded. "It's bad enough I have to work with you band of miscreants. I refuse to work with Disney characters."

Reid couldn't help himself. "Snow White was actually a German fairy tale called _Sneewittchen_ published in Grimm's Fairy Tales in 1812. The animated version didn't appear until 1937."

"We have a case?" Alex interrupted gently, turning their attention back to the reason they were awake in the first place.

"Indeed you do," Garcia proclaimed. "Right here in our nation's capital. Luckily for our fearless leader, and by that I mean Chief Cruz, I fell asleep on the couch in Rossi's office before I even made it home last night, so I was readily available for file sharing." Her face was replaced on the screen by photographs of nine bodies in various states of butchery. "Our UNSUB du jour started with Sarah Beth Thomas." The picture changed to a close up of an elderly woman who almost seemed to be sleeping. "As you can see, she was stabbed only one time. No muss, no fuss. Her body was discovered by a neighbor when she failed to show up for her weekly bridge game. The ME estimated she had been dead for around a week when she was found two days ago."

The next photograph showed two people, a young woman and an older man. While they were more obviously murdered, they still looked relatively unscathed. "Bob and Sharon Brooks," Garcia continued, "were also discovered two days ago, although the ME thinks they were killed only the day before. Two stab wounds each, one to the stomach, one to the chest. "

"Father and daughter?" JJ asked.

"No, husband and ever so much younger wife," Garcia replied. "And before you ask, this could be a case of the evil step-mother. They were found by Mr. Brook's twenty-two year old daughter, who is a mere three years younger than the new Mrs. Brooks."

"Garcia, is there any reason to think the step-daughter is involved?" Hotch asked.

"Only that it fits the fairy tale scenario so nicely," Garcia admitted.

Morgan noted, "Those are two very different victimologies, and slightly different MO's. It could easily be two different UNSUBs. Why call us in?"

"Because of what, or should I say who, was discovered today." The screen shifted again to show two photographs side-by-side. One contained just one body, the other held three. "Daniel Escobar, Benny Alvarez, Rodney Dickerson, and William Jenkins, college roommates at Georgetown killed in their off-campus apartment; between sixteen and twenty-nine stab wounds each."

Morgan whistled, "That's a hell of an escalation."

"Oh, you ain't seen nothing yet," Garcia confided. "I've made a point of not looking at his last victims, but the description is bad enough." The couple in the final photograph was nearly unrecognizable as human. "Jenny and Matt Tew, husband and wife, parents to Alaina. The daughter was asleep on the couch when she woke up to find someone doing this to her parents. As best as the police on scene could tell, she waited until he was gone, then made her way to a telephone in the kitchen and dialed 911. She didn't say anything to the operator, just left the line open and went back to her parents' side. When the cops arrived that's where they found her."

"There's a witness?" Alex asked, surprised.

"Unfortunately, she hasn't been able to give any details," Hotch said.

"She hasn't been able to give anything," Garcia corrected. "She hasn't said a word since they found her."

"And that's where we come in," Hotch continued. "Garcia, is there any connection among all these victims?"

"I'm working on that now, sir. I didn't receive the information until mere moments before I started sharing it with you. I'll know more soon."

"Right." Hotch looked at his watch again. "When we get to Quantico, everyone's going to need to run home and change into warmer clothes. Bring a go-bag to the office with you. "

JJ voiced their confusion. "I thought the case was in D.C."

"It is, " Hotch confirmed, "but they've had snow, and are expecting more. Plan to be in the office for at least a couple of days."

"This just gets better and better," Rossi groaned.

"I know, and I'm sorry," Hotch replied. "I'll ask for time off when this is over. For now, wheels down in 30."


	2. Icy Roads

**AN: Thanks to all the followers, favors, and reviewers. Mere seconds after I posted the first chapter our Internet went down; Windstream finally said today they'd have to send us a new modem. On top of that, my copy of the chapter disappeared from my documents files. So, I was a little hesitant to write the next chapter until I could borrow a friend's Wi-Fi and make sure both that somebody liked it and that I actually wrote it and didn't just dream the whole thing. Apparently it's real, so here's chapter 2.**

"It could be worse," Morgan pointed out as he drove JJ and Reid through the nearly deserted streets of DC.

"It could be raining," Reid said.

"What?"

"Don't tell me you don't get the reference," Reid demanded. "I know you've seen 'Young Frankenstein.'"

"Reid, just because I've seen a movie doesn't mean I can recite every line, unlike some people I could mention," Morgan replied. "Anyway, I meant that it could be worse because Hotch could have said we had to go straight to the office. At least we get to run home and get clean clothes."

"Easy for you to say," JJ groused. "You don't have a son and husband sitting at home thinking they're going to get two days with you when they're actually going to get about two minutes. I promised Henry we'd build a snowman during the first good snowstorm."

"Bet you're more concerned about what you and Will were going to do during Henry's naptime," Morgan teased with a grin.

"That too," JJ admitted.

"What were you going to do?" Reid asked innocently. Morgan and JJ both gave him a look of exasperation.

"Really, Pretty Boy?" Morgan said.

"What?" Reid replied. Then he got it. "Oh."

Morgan nodded. "Yeah. Oh." He addressed JJ again. "I'll make you a deal, lover girl. I'll drop you off first, before I take Reid home and go by my place."

"But that's 12.7 miles out of your way," Reid pointed out. "It's much more logical to go to my apartment first and then . . . ." He trailed off as he noticed JJ and Morgan giving him the same look again. "Oh. Never mind."

"Anyway," Morgan continued, "I'll drop you off first, and I'll need to drive very slowly on these icy streets in order to be completely safe. It should give you a good hour, hour and a half before we make it back. That'll give you enough time to build a snowman."

JJ laughed. "You do know it's Henry's naptime, don't you?"

"I was aware of that." Morgan grinned again.

By that time they were pulling up in JJ's driveway. "Try to make it an hour and a half," JJ said as she got out. "Maybe we'll have time to do both."

Reid moved from the back to take the seat vacated by JJ. As they pulled out again he said to Morgan, "I don't suppose it matters to you that I have things that I'd like to do at home as well."

"No, not really," Morgan replied.

Reid punched him in the arm.

"Careful, genius," Morgan said, swerving slightly. "You probably haven't noticed because of my superior driving skills, but the roads are a little slick."

"I'm sure it's nothing you can't handle."

"It's not, but you wouldn't want to distract me at an inopportune moment."

"Like this?" Reid asked, punching him again.

Morgan glanced over at his passenger for only a second, but it was enough for him to nearly miss seeing the car sliding through a red light toward them. "Shit!" Morgan called, stomping the gas and speeding up enough to let the car pass behind them. "Whew!" he breathed once they were safe.

"Sorry," Reid said quickly, putting his hands in his lap. "Hands to myself, I promise."

"No problem," Morgan replied. "I got this."

"Even so," Reid said and refused to talk or do anything that might distract Morgan for the remainder of the drive.

Ten silent minutes later they turned into the parking lot in front of Reid's apartment building. "Drive slowly," Reid warned as he opened the car door. "I mean it. You can tell yourself you're doing it for JJ if you want to, or you can pretend you're giving me time to get some things done, but it should take you at least 17.2 minutes to drive home and another 17.2 to drive back, so I don't expect to see you for at least 40 minutes."

"Yes, Mother," Morgan said.

"I mean it," Reid reiterated. "I'm going to be really mad at you if you get in a wreck and die because you didn't want to drive carefully."

"No dying, I promise," Morgan chuckled as Reid slammed the door. Then he laughed outright as Reid slipped and nearly fell walking to the front door of his building. Rolling down his window, Morgan called out to him, "Looks like you have a better chance of getting hurt today than I do."

"Go home, Morgan," Reid demanded, picking his way gingerly up his front steps. "I'll see you in 40 minutes, not before!"

"Forty minutes," Morgan agreed, still laughing as he drove away.

Forty-seven minutes later Morgan pulled back up outside Reid's apartment and texted, "Here", to his phone. Reid reappeared in his doorway now dressed in several layers with his purple scarf around his neck. By that time a light dusting of snow had started to fall again, and Reid stopped for a minute to catch a snowflake on his tongue before walking carefully to the car and climbing in. "You know, I never saw real snow before I moved to Virginia," he told Morgan as he fastened his seatbelt and they started slowly down the street.

"Really?" Morgan asked. "You never took a vacation somewhere where there was snow?"

"I never took a vacation at all," Reid replied matter-of-factly.

Morgan shook his head. "Pretty boy, we have got to get you out of the house more."

"Morgan, we travel approximately 250 days a year. I get out plenty."

"Not what I meant, and you know it. What about outside the U.S.? Ever gone to Europe or South America? Somewhere exotic?"

"I went to Canada when we had the pig farm case."

Morgan sighed. "When we finally get a vacation, you and I are going to go visit Emily. We're going to ride in a double decker bus and visit Buckingham Palace and all the other touristy things. I'll even let you take me to see a Shakespearean play if you want, but you're going to get out of this town. No arguments."

"No arguments," Reid agreed. "I'd like to go visit Emily."

Just then Reid's phone rang. He looked at the readout and said, "It's Hotch."

"Probably wondering what's taking us so long," Morgan said. "Tell him we're three minutes from JJ's house so we'll be in soon."

Reid pushed the answer button. "Hey, Hotch. We're three minutes from JJ's house. . . . Yes, I know it would have made more sense for Morgan to pick me up after he picked up JJ. . . . No, I'm not going to tell you why he didn't. You'll have to ask him."

He looked over with concern as he heard Morgan say, "Oh my God."

"What's wrong?" Reid asked, feeling the car start to speed up and fishtail slightly on the icy road.

"JJ's house," Morgan shouted as he tore into the driveway and slammed to a stop. "Reid, tell Hotch to call 911. It's on fire!"

Reid noted the smoke pouring from the LaMontaigne household as he relayed Morgan's instructions to Hotch and dropped his phone. Seconds later he was beside Morgan as the muscular agent shook and banged on the locked door.

"Hold on," Reid yelled to Morgan, "I've got a key."

"No time," Morgan replied, and promptly kicked in the front door. Waves of smoke billowed out as they made their way into the house, shouting JJ and Will's names and trying to see through the murkiness.

In the car, Hotch's voice came out of Reid's forgotten phone, demanding an update that wasn't going to come.


	3. Call 911

**AN: I've always sort of laughed at authors who raved about how much they enjoyed getting reviews; honestly, I thought they were a little needy. Of course, I've never written in a forum where I could get actual reviews before. Shows what I know. Reviews are AWESOME! I love to hear your take on the story. Are the chapter lengths okay? Am I putting in enough (or too much) description? Do I need more focus on "the case"? I also welcome ideas. I have some plan for where this is going, but it's not set in stone by any means.**

Morgan and Reid ducked through the broken front door into the smoke-filled hallway. Gesturing with one hand to his left, Morgan went toward the kitchen on the right, leaving Reid the living room. There were remnants of lunch on the table: two plates, one with the crusts of a sandwich eaten out in the middle and one that was mostly clean, with just a few crumbs. A half-full cup of milk and a Coke can completed the tableau. Otherwise the room was empty, and Morgan we getting ready to circle through the far door back into the hallway when he heard Reid calling from the living room.

"In here, Morgan! They're in here. Hurry!"

Crossing back across the hall, Morgan expected to find some or all of the members of the LaMontagne family, perhaps unconscious from smoke. What he didn't expect was what he found. JJ was indeed lying unconscious face down on the floor, but Will was sitting in a chair next to her. For a second Morgan thought his eyes were deceiving him, but he was seeing what he thought he was: Will was bound to the chair. His wrists were tied individually to each of the arms, and his legs were tied to the legs of the chair. His face was a mass of blood and bruises, and he seemed barely awake. Reid was kneeling beside him frantically attempting to untie one of his arms. As Morgan ran to check on JJ, Will appeared to focus on his moving form. "Henry," Will rasped, and then coughed hoarsely. "Henry's upstairs. Nap time. Don't let him . . . " Will's voice trailed off and his head dropped down onto his chest.

Morgan and Reid both rose and started toward the hallway. Reid grabbed Morgan and pulled him back. "I'll go," he proclaimed, continuing past Morgan .

"No, wait," Morgan said. "It could be dangerous."

"Look," Reid turned on Morgan with an intensity rarely seen in the younger man. "I'm not strong enough to carry them out of here. You take care of them. I'm going after my godson."

He was gone before Morgan could respond.

A moan from the center of the room snapped Morgan's attention to the fallen couple. He wasn't even sure which one of them had made the noise; vaguely he decided that it didn't really matter. The smoke was growing thicker, and he could see flames reflected in the mirror over the fireplace. Without taking time to figure out exactly where they came from, he took two strides back to JJ's side, crouched down , rolled her face up, and lifted her into his arms. As he did so, he realized that she was bleeding from a wound on the side of her head. Rather than losing consciousness from smoke-inhalation, it appeared that JJ had been knocked out by a blow. He realized that he probably should not have moved her; she could have a spinal injury. On the other hand, the only other option at this point was to leave her to die in the fire, and she was up in his arms now. Without further thought he carried her out, through the now blazing hallway, and out the front door. He laid her carefully on the driveway, sorry that he didn't have a blanket or a dry spot to put her down on but not really having time to worry about it. Racing back into the house, he detoured quickly to his right and grabbed a carving knife from the block on the counter, then dashed across the hallway and into the living room. He used the knife to cut the ropes holding Will to the chair. Will was conscious but groggy, so Morgan pulled Will's arm across his own shoulders and helped him stumble back into the hall. In the doorway he paused, surveying the flames licking the ceiling and working their way up the center staircase, wondering if they wouldn't be better off going back through the living room and out the back door. Hearing a "whoosh" behind them, he glanced back and realized that direction was even more dangerous than the way they were going. There was no time to waste if he had any hope of getting Will and himself out of there. He shifted Will's arm more securely onto his shoulder and brazened his way through the flames, banging out the front door and down the steps in one swift motion, practically dragging the semi-conscious man with him. By now the snow was falling in earnest, and he could barely see JJ's still unmoving form at the end of the driveway.

At that point Will became aware that they had left the house and he started trying to go back, calling Henry's name frantically. He didn't have enough strength to make it more than a couple of steps on his own, and Morgan grabbed him as he started to sink to his knees. Leading Will to where JJ lay, Morgan promised, "I'll get him." He started toward the house to try and find Reid and Henry, but where the door had been there was now nothing but a blazing inferno, and he knew there was no chance he could make his way back that by that route.

Instead Morgan ran toward the back of the house, hoping to find that the back door was not as impassable as the front. As he sprinted past closed windows, he saw that the entire bottom floor was now engulfed, and he found himself bouncing on his toes outside the rear entrance to the house, adrenalin pushing him forward but his good judgment stopping him from rushing in to certain death. "Reid!" he shouted hopelessly, sure that there was no way for the man he considered to be his brother to even hear him, much less escape with his godson. To his immense relief and surprise, he heard breaking glass from the front of the house, and Reid's voice calling to him.

"Morgan!" The sound was weak but intelligible. It was followed by a series of deep coughs and the crash of more glass breaking. Morgan ran to the front of the house again in time to see Reid climbing through the window he had broken out, carrying Henry with Reid's purple scarf tied across his face to filter the worst of the smoke. Four-year-old Henry was clinging to Reid's side like a limpet, leaving Reid's right arm free to help them over the sill. Once they had climbed out onto the roof of the porch over the front door, Reid inched his way to the edge, careful of the snow-covered shingles under his feet. He was coughing almost uncontrollably by that point, and Morgan was afraid he would slip and they would both go tumbling off the roof.

When Reid had carried Henry as far as he could without stepping out into nothingness, he paused and looked around as if hoping a tree or a ladder would magically appear and give them a way down. Instead he saw Morgan, and called to him again. "Morgan!" Cough, cough. "I'll lower Henry," cough, "as far as I," cough, cough, "can, and you catch him."

Understanding immediately, Morgan moved to place himself directly beneath where Reid was now crouching with Henry. He glanced at the flames dancing out of the doorway and up the front wall of the house and realized they would have to move quickly. By holding Henry's hands and lowering him over the side, Reid could get the child a good four feet closer to the ground. That would put his feet just inches above Morgan's outstretched arms, allowing him to catch the boy easily when Reid let him go.

That was the plan. Unfortunately, it wasn't going to happen that way. Terrified, Henry was refusing to let go of Reid's side. Morgan could see the man attempting to pry the child's arms from around his neck, urgently talking to him between spells of coughing. It looked like he was about to succeed in removing Henry from his side when there was a muffled boom from inside the house, followed by a powerful crash.

When he thought back later, Morgan could see the whole thing in slow motion, but in the moment it seemed to happen instantaneously. Flames erupted from the broken window behind Reid and Henry as something inside the house exploded. The power of the concussion lifted Reid off his feet and flung him forward off the roof. Protectively he pulled Henry back into his arms. It was an instinctive move, but one Morgan realized could actually do more harm than good. Landing on the ground was going to be injurious enough, but the chances were now greater that Henry would be crushed between the ground and Reid's body. "That's why you're supposed to strap your child into a car seat, not carry him on your lap," Morgan thought inanely as he watched the two fly over his head.

Apparently Reid had a similar thought. Twisting his body in mid-air, he managed to get his right side, the one holding Henry, facing upward. Instead of landing on top of the boy, he crashed hard onto his left side and back, protecting Henry with his own body. He hit shoulder-first, and then his head bounced hard against the snow-covered ground. Morgan hoped that the five inch layer would be enough to keep Reid from smashing his skull. "Reid!" he yelled, plowing through the growing drifts to reach his friend's side. Simultaneously he heard Will call to Henry, and knew that, weakened or not, the father was similarly pushing through the snow to reach his son.


	4. Stuck, in More Ways Than One

**AN: Thank you for the reviews. They really do help. I'm still open to suggestions.**

By the time Alex Blake drove home, changed clothes, and drove back to the BAU, Hotch and Rossi were busy studying the board where Garcia had posted before and after pictures of the nine victims and a large map of the D.C. area. Rossi was reading off murder locations as Hotch pushed colored pins into the map. Blake could see them through the window in the conference room as she dropped her bag on her desk in the bullpen and started up the stairs. To her surprise she noticed that there was a person in Hotch's office, sitting at his desk and working diligently with paper and pencil. When she saw who it was she poked her head in the door.

"Hi, Jack," she said to Hotch's ten-year-old son. "What are you doing here?"

"Hi, Aunt Alex," Jack replied, glancing up from the work in front of him. "They sent us home from school because of the snow. And Aunt Jessica has a college reunion this weekend, and Daddy had already told her that he was coming home, so she went ahead and went. Now he's stuck with me."

"Oh, hang on," Blake said, coming the rest of the way into the office and closing the door. She sat down on the couch and patted the space beside her. "Come sit over here with me for a second, Jack."

Jack looked dubious. "I have homework to finish," he said, gesturing to the papers in front of him. "Daddy wants me to finish before dinner."

"I'll just take a minute," Blake promised. "And if your homework is giving you any trouble, I'm pretty sure you can get Reid to help you with it as soon as he gets here."

"That's true," Jack conceded, pushing back from the desk and coming around to sit beside Blake.

"Now," Blake said. "I wanted you to come over here because I wanted to make sure that you were really, really paying attention to what I have to say."

Jack nodded his head, biting his lip. "Am I in trouble, Aunt Alex?"

"No," Blake assured him, taking his hands in hers. "You're not in trouble. But I did just hear you say something that I didn't like." She could see Jack running through his head what he had said when she came in and being unable to remember anything that would have upset her. "You said that your daddy was stuck with you."

Jack said, "Oh," quietly, and she could tell he understood why she had brought it up. "Maybe 'stuck' wasn't the right word to use."

"It was the right word if that's how you feel. Do you feel like you're getting in the way?"

"Maybe," Jack admitted. "I know he'd like it better if I were still in school or at home with Aunt Jessica. He told me to stay in his office and not bother anybody. I'm trying really hard to do that."

Blake sighed. She was going to need to have a talk with Hotch. She squeezed Jack's hands gently. "I can see why you would feel like your dad doesn't want you around. He's kind of in a hard spot right now. What he really wishes he could do is take you home and go with you. He would rather spend time with you than anything in the world. It's just that, well . . . "

"I know," Jack interrupted her, "Daddy has to catch the bad guys. And he doesn't like me to be around because he doesn't want me to get hurt, or scared. I know, Aunt Alex. It's okay."

"Are you sure?" asked Blake.

"I'm sure," Jack responded. "It's really okay. Now you need to get to work before Daddy gets mad at both of us."

Blake laughed, standing up and giving Jack a hug. "Who's the adult here?"

"Me," Jack giggled.

"You?"

"Me! Now get to work, young lady!"

"Yes, sir!" Blake gave Jack a salute before opening the door and leaving the office. She could hear Jack chuckling as she marched the rest of the way to the conference room.

Rossi and Hotch turned from the evidence board as she walked in. "You're in a good mood," Rossi observed.

"You can thank Jack Hotchner for that."

"Jack?" Hotch questioned. "I thought he was in my office doing homework."

"Don't worry, Daddy Bear, he is. I just stopped in to say hello to him before I came in here to that." She gestured toward the photographs. "Give me a live nine-year-old any day. And you, "she tapped Hotch lightly on the shoulder, "need to make sure he doesn't think it's a burden for you having him here."

"A burden? I never said . . . ".

"You don't have to say," Blake informed him. "He's a profiler's son. He knows you don't want him here."

"Of course I don't want him here," Hotch retorted, "but not because he's a burden."

"I know that, and you know that," Blake said. "You need to make sure he knows that."

Hotch huffed a little impatiently. "I'll be right back."

Rossi touched his arm. "It won't do any good to talk to him if he thinks you're annoyed with him."

Taking a deep breath, Hotch visibly relaxed his body. "Right. I'll be right back," he said much more lightly.

Rossi and Blake turned back to the evidence board. "What have we got so far?" Blake asked.

"Not much," Rossi admitted ruefully. He pointed toward the map. "As you can see, there doesn't seem to be much of a pattern in the murder sites." The closest two pins were less than a quarter inch apart; the furthest two were on opposite sides of the city.

"They were all murdered in their homes, right?" Blake asked.

"That would be correct, " Garcia affirmed, bustling into the room. She had spruced herself up since they'd seen her from the plane. Bright green glasses frames matched the pink and green scarf around her neck and the three-inch heels on her feet. "And other than that, they do not seem to have a single thing in common." She set the laptop she was carrying on the table and opened up a series of screens. "Sarah Beth Thomas is a retired teacher. Never married; two adopted daughters, both of whom went away to college, married, and live far out of state. Bob Brooks was a surgeon. Sharon was a nurse when she met him; she since quit her job to do the dutiful wife thing. The four boys were college students. Danny delivered pizzas for Dominoes. Bill taught some undergraduate classes. The other two devoted themselves to their studies. Jenny and Matt Tew ran a dog training facility out of their home where they taught dogs to be service animals. You can hear the dogs barking on the 911 tape. Different jobs, different lifestyles, different areas. I can't find any similarities."

Blake examined the board for a minute longer, then shook her head. "We need Reid," she commented.

Rossi looked at his watch, "Where is Reid?" he asked. "And Morgan and JJ? They've had plenty of time to get home and get back here, even with the snow."

Hotch had entered the room while Rossi was talking. "Good question," he said. He pulled his phone from his pocket and hit a number. "Reid, what's taking you so long? . . . Wouldn't it have made more sense for Morgan to pick you up first? . . . Are you planning to tell me why he didn't?" Hotch looked at the others in the room and shook his head. "They're still twenty minutes away," he mouthed, barely making a sound. "Wait. What? Reid? Reid!" Hotch punched the "end" button and immediately dialed three more numbers. "This is Supervisory Special Agent Aaron Hotchner with the FBI. There's been a structural fire reported at . . . . Hold on." He pulled the phone away from his mouth and asked, "What's JJ's address?"

"917 Walker Way," Garcia answered immediately. "What's going on, Hotch? Did you say a fire? Hotch?"

Hotch shook his head at her impatiently and started talking back into his phone. He gave the dispatcher the address and informed her that he didn't have any further information before he hung up.

"Reid says that JJ's house is on fire," he reported, pocketing the phone and pulling out his keys. "That's all I know. Let's go."

All four of them started for the elevator when Hotch suddenly remembered. "Oh, no. Jack. Garcia, can you stay here and look after Jack?"

"Oh, sir . . . "Garcia was shaking her head at the same time she was turning back toward Hotch's office.

"I'll stay," Blake quickly offered. "You should go, Garcia. If their house is on fire, JJ is going to need you."

"Thank you," Garcia agreed, glad that she wasn't going to have to choose between her boss's wishes and her own.

"Call me as soon as you know anything," requested Blake as the elevator door shut. "Jack," she called, masking her concern and putting on a happy face, "let's go to the break room downstairs and see if the snack machine has any chocolate. I think we're going to need it."

**AN: I think I deserve some sort of award for ending two different chapters with the same cliffhanger.**


	5. Mayhem

**AN: I'm unsure about this chapter. I didn't want to just jump straight to the hospital, but it felt like there were more things going on than I could write about at once. I wasn't sure how to get across what was going on with Reid, with JJ and Will, with Henry, and with the house burning, all at the same time. Or maybe I should have jumped straight to the hospital. Reviews appreciated.**

Morgan reached Reid's side in what felt like both a split-second and a year. Before he could tend to his fallen friend, though, he had to stop Will from unthinkingly causing more damage. He grabbed the distraught father by both arms and pulled him back. "Will! Will!" he called, realizing that, even though he was shouting in the other man's ear, he couldn't hear him over his own panic. "Don't touch him! You're going to make things worse."

"Henry. I have to get Henry." Will struggled to free himself from Morgan's grip, focusing with single-minded determination on his son.

Morgan didn't want to hurt the man, who still had blood dripping from his nose, but he couldn't let him move Henry or Reid until he'd had a chance to check their injuries. He wrapped his arms around Will from behind and physically lifted the writhing man and turned him away from his son. Thankfully he saw that JJ was finally beginning to stir, and he used her as the diversion he needed. "Will!" he shouted again. "Go help JJ. She has a head injury. Don't let her move too much. I'll take care of Henry."

Will sagged in his arms, the effort he had put forth having exhausted the little bit of energy he had. "Take care of Henry," he repeated, sounding lost.

"That's right. You take care of JJ; I'll take care of Henry."

To Morgan's relief, Will stumbled back toward his wife's side, leaving Morgan to deal with Reid and Henry. He turned back and dropped to his knees beside his fallen friend. "Reid?" he asked, not really expecting an answer. "Henry?"

"Unca Derek?" Morgan realized with surprise that Henry was conscious and, now that the shock of flying off the roof was fading, was starting to move.

"Hey there, Henry. Don't move just yet, okay. I need to make sure you're not hurt before you try and get up."

"I okay," Henry assured him. "But Unca Spence is hugging me too tight. Unca Spence, let me go! I can't breathe good."

Reaching for the boy, Morgan recognized that, despite being unconscious, Reid was still clinging to his godson with an iron grip. He began cautiously to pry Reid's arms off of Henry's body, worried that the youngster would harm Reid further in his attempts to get loose. "Hang on, Henry. Let me help you. I'll have you free in a second. Are you hurting anywhere at all?"

"My throat hurts, "proclaimed Henry, emitting a few coughs as if to prove it. "And my eyes are burning."

"That's from the smoke," Morgan affirmed. "How about your body? Any owies?"

By that time he had gotten Henry loose from Reid's arms and picked him up into his own.

"Nope," the boy declared. "Unca Spence held me tight and we flew! That was cool, Unca Spence. Can we do it again?" Henry twisted his head around and saw that Reid was still lying unmoving in the snow. "Unca Spence? Are you okay?" He started trying to get out of Morgan's arms, and Morgan found himself struggling to hold back a second LaMontagne man from his injured friend. Luckily the three-foot tall version was easier to handle.

Glancing over his shoulder, Morgan saw that Will was now sitting cross-legged on the driveway with JJ's head cradled in his lap. It wouldn't be any less dangerous to allow Henry to disturb his mother than it would be to let him move Reid. "Where the hell is everybody?" Morgan muttered to himself, not realizing that it had actually been only about fifteen minutes since he'd first seen the smoke and had Reid tell Hotch to call 911. With the icy roads, the fire truck he could now hear coming up the road had actually made decent time. Hotch had done even better, pulling up right behind the firefighters. Suddenly Morgan went from basically being all alone with the disaster to having more people helping than he could focus on at once.

Garcia climbed out of the SUV almost before Hotch stopped it and grabbed Henry out of Morgan's arms. "Are you all right?" she asked, half to Morgan and half to Henry.

"I'm fine, mama. I think he is too, but I haven't really had a chance to check. Can you look after him?"

For all her bright colors and strong emotions, Garcia knew how to act calm in a crisis when someone needed her to, and Henry definitely needed her now. She carried him away from the mayhem and got into the back seat of the SUV with him, whispering in his ear and actually eliciting a giggle from the youngster.

That responsibility taken care of, Morgan turned back to Reid. Hotch and Rossi had stopped to offer assistance to JJ and Will, probably not even realizing that there was another casualty. "Reid," Morgan said quietly, still not expecting an answer. He warily reached out his hand and placed his fingers against Reid's neck, feeling with relief the strong heartbeat. He released a pent-up breath he hadn't even realized he was holding in, then started assessing his friend more thoroughly.

"He's alive," he muttered to himself. "He's breathing. Knocked out cold, no surprise there." Morgan realized he had no idea how to help Reid. He didn't like the way Reid was lying on the ground, looking remarkably like a rag doll some child had thrown away, but he was certain that moving him would cause even more damage. Morgan pulled off his coat and laid it over Reid's cold form, doing the only thing he could think of that might be helpful.

"How bad is he?" Hotch had come up behind Morgan while he'd been checking on Reid.

Morgan shook his head. "He's alive, but that's all I can tell for sure."

"There're two ambulances on the way," Hotch informed him.

"How are Will and JJ?" Morgan asked, remembering the couple again. He'd been so focused on Reid and Henry, he had forgotten all about them.

"I think they'll be all right," Hotch said. "Will's been beaten pretty badly, and JJ obviously has a concussion and maybe a skull fracture, but she's semi-conscious. I couldn't find any other injuries on her. What happened here, Morgan?"

"I don't really know," admitted Morgan, shaking his head again. "When we came in Will was tied to a chair, JJ was unconscious, Henry was upstairs, and the place was on fire. Reid got blown off the roof saving Henry. What's taking them so long?"

As if in answer to his question, the first ambulance pulled up in front of the house. Rossi had gone to the road to direct them, and he sent the paramedics to Reid first. Morgan again repeated what had happened to Reid, giving the medics more detail than he had to Hotch. "He landed on his shoulder and his left side first, then his head hit, then the rest of his body."

Then male medic ran back to the ambulance and returned with a cervical collar and backboard while the female carefully checked Reid's vitals. Taking the collar from her partner, she fastened it around Reid's neck with a minimum of movement. She handed Morgan his coat, which he put on unthinkingly. "Want to give us a hand?" she asked, so Morgan crouched by Reid's feet while the other medic positioned the backboard next to his body. "On three. One, two three," the female counted as she cradled Reid's head, and all three of them rolled him at the same time.

Immediately Reid's breathing became labored. Each inward gasp sounded like he was trying to breathe through water. "What happened?" Morgan asked fearfully.

"Probably punctured a lung with a broken rib," the male paramedic answered, quickly starting an IV in Reid's uninjured arm. "We need to get him to the hospital as quickly as possible. There's not much we can do for him out here."

"I'm riding with him," Morgan proclaimed. By that point Hotch and the other paramedic had brought over a gurney and lifted Reid and the backboard onto it.

"Sorry, sir," the woman said, gently pulling Morgan back. "We'll need room to move. You're welcome to meet us at the hospital."

"Which one?" Hotch asked, putting a hand on Morgan's arm to make sure he didn't try to climb into the ambulance.

"George Washington University. We'll take good care of him."

"No narcotics," Morgan said suddenly.

"Excuse me?"

"He doesn't want any narcotics," Morgan repeated.

Hotch nodded. "I'm his medical contact, and that's correct. No narcotics."

"Whatever you say, sir." She closed the door and the ambulance started down the street. It fishtailed slightly at the corner, then continued on toward the highway.

Morgan put his hands to his head. If he'd had hair, he would have been running his fingers through it. He turned away from the departing ambulance and faced the disaster area which had been JJ's house. Medics from a second ambulance had JJ on a gurney and Will standing beside her holding her hand while Rossi encouraged him to climb in and go to the hospital. Fire fighters ran in and out of the house, where the flames seemed to have died but smoke continued to pour out every opening. People had come out of their houses and were gathered on a neighbor's lawn, not as many as there would have been had it not been a weekday afternoon, but more than usual because the schools had closed early. Over it all the snow continued to drift down.

"What a mess," Morgan said, partly to Hotch and partly to himself. The entire scene felt surreal, like he was watching a 3-D movie or a dream instead of a real occurrence.

"Come on," Hotch said, taking command as he was most comfortable doing. "We're not going to be able to do anything here for quite a while. You and Rossi take Henry and Garcia to the hospital and get him checked out. I'll stay here and talk with the DC police and whoever they send from CSI. I'll join you as soon as I can."

The second ambulance pulled away with JJ and Will inside. As Rossi walked over to join them, Morgan suddenly realized he was cold. "You sure you don't need us to stay?" he asked Hotch, but the offer was half-hearted. He really wanted to get warm and find out how Reid was doing.

"Go," Hotch ordered. He handed the car keys to Rossi. "Get them out of here," he told the older agent. "I'll be there in a little while. George Washington University Hospital."

"Got it," Rossi said. "Let's go, Morgan." Then, when Morgan seemed undecided whether he should leave or not, "We need to get Henry looked at. I'm sure he breathed in some smoke during all this."

Mention of the child got Morgan moving toward the car. He climbed into the passenger seat and leaned back against the headrest. Garcia buckled Henry in, and they started toward the hospital, leaving Hotch to deal with the smoking remains of the LaMontagne house.


	6. One Case

**AN: I don't have nearly as much time to update now that spring break is over. I'm trying for once a week. Actually, I'm trying for twice a week, which may mean I actually post once a week.**

Driving was not David Rossi's favorite activity; he usually let the younger members of the team do the honors behind the wheel. Today, creeping down the highway at 25 miles an hour in a whiteout, he fervently wished someone else were in the driver's seat. He actually considered pulling over and asking Morgan to take his place, but a quick glance at the man biting his lip and staring into nothingness attested that he was in no condition to drive. So Rossi powered on, grateful when he saw the exit ahead of him, and even more grateful as he pulled up to the ER entrance. It was impossible by this point to see where the painted lines were in the parking lot, so he pulled into what looked like it might be a legal space and hoped that the FBI SUV would escape notice by any patrolman unfortunate enough to be out writing tickets in a blizzard.

The three of them, Garcia carrying Henry, entered a scene as chaotic as the one outside of JJ's house had been a few minutes earlier. As always, DC drivers were too busy (or too stupid) to stay off the streets during a snow storm, and the aftermath of two different multi-car pileups was evident inside the emergency room. Rossi took one look at the pandemonium and made some executive decisions. "Morgan," he said, making sure he had the younger man's full attention, "I'm sure they're taking Reid directly to the operating room. Go find the OR waiting room and let them know at the desk who you are and why you're there. One of us will come find you there in a little while.

Morgan nodded and took off toward the elevators, happy to escape the cacophony and to be doing something. Next Rossi addressed Garcia. "How's Henry doing?"

Garcia looked at the little boy who had fallen asleep in her arms, worn out from all the excitement. "I think he's okay," she said, "but he needs to be looked at."

"I know," Rossi agreed, "but not here and not now. It would take hours just to get him signed in, and they're not going to see him any time soon with all the much more obviously injured people in here." He paused as two paramedics and a nurse pushed between them with a gurney, carrying a broken and bleeding woman toward the elevator. "I need to make some phone calls, which I'm not allowed to do in here. I'm going to go sit in the SUV and use my cell. I'll take Henry with me and let him sleep some more in the back seat. Why don't you try to find out what's happening with JJ and Will. If you can get to them, stay with them. If they won't let you, go find Morgan. I'll bring Henry up there when I get finished and we can figure out what to do next."

"Are you sure, sir? I don't mind taking care of him."

"They're definitely not going to let you go back to see JJ and Will with a child in tow." Rossi lifted Henry out of her arms easily. "It's okay, Penelope. I won't bite him."

"Oh, no, sir, I know, it's just . . ."

Rossi used his shoulder to give her a nudge since his hands were now full. "Go on. Find JJ. We'll be fine." He headed back out into the storm, leaving Garcia to elbow her way through the crowd standing three-deep at the admittance desk.

An hour and forty minutes later, Rossi carried a wailing Henry into the OR waiting room. Morgan, Garcia, and Hotch looked up as he demanded, "Someone please take this child off my hands."

Since he was sitting closest, Hotch automatically pulled Henry into his lap and started rubbing his back and making soothing noises. Garcia couldn't help smiling at seeing Hotch in "daddy mode."

"Where have you been?" Hotch asked Rossi curiously.

"Making things a lot better for all of us," Rossi replied. "I take it they wouldn't let you stay with JJ and Will, Penelope."

"No," she answered him. "They said there were too many people and everyone wanted to be with their loved ones and if they gave me permission they'd have to give it to everyone, and I tried showing them my FBI credentials but they just didn't care . . . "

Rossi put up a hand to stop the tirade. "It's okay, Kitten. We'll all be together again soon. I've taken care of some things. Come with me."

"Where are we going?" Hotch asked, at the same time as Morgan said, "But we haven't heard about Reid yet," and Garcia said, "What did you care of, sir?"

"Shhh," Rossi cautioned. "You'll upset Henry again, and, trust me, you do not want to do that." Rossi started out the door of the waiting room, and the other three went with him almost unthinkingly. Although they were not usually ones to follow blindly, it had been a long, traumatic day, and they knew Rossi would not lead them anywhere injurious. If he wanted them to come, they might have questions, but they would go.

"Did you know," Rossi asked conversationally as they walked toward the elevators, "that George Washington University Hospital is one of the hospitals set up to house the President in the event he needs medical attention?"

"Thanks for that important piece of information, Reid Senior," Morgan said snarkily as the doors slid open and they entered an empty car.

"Just wait, my friend," Rossi suggested, taking a key from his pocket and inserting it in the panel with the floor buttons. "That particular piece of information will indeed seem important in just a moment." He turned the key, and the elevator started moving upward.

"Dave, cut the 007 routine and tell us what's going on," Hotch requested.

"This." Rossi swept an arm forward as the elevator doors opened, indicating they should precede him. Instead of entering into a hospital corridor as they expected, they walked out into what appeared to be a well-appointed living room, complete with two couches, several recliners, and a five-foot flat-screen TV.

They all stared around themselves in bewilderment. Henry was the first to say something, wiggling to get out of Hotch's arms and walking right up to the television. "Wow! It's big," he said in wonder. "Unca Aaron, can I watch cartoons?"

"Sure you can," Rossi answered for Hotch, who seemed momentarily speechless. He picked up a remote from a table between the couches and flicked on the TV. It took a few tries for him to find an appropriate channel, but as soon as Clifford the Big Red Dog appeared onscreen, Henry settled happily on the floor to watch.

"Dave, what is all this?" Hotch asked.

"I told you. This is the hospital that takes care of the President. And since I happen to know that the President is currently on a peace-keeping mission in the Middle East, and the Vice-President is on a campaign tour through the Northwest, the space was available."

"Man, Rossi, you really have friends in high places," Morgan commented with a whistle.

Hotch shook his head. "It is impressive, Dave, but it seems a little over the top. We're only going to be here a few hours at most. As soon as we have word that JJ, Will and Reid are alright, we need to head back to the office. We still have a case to work."

"Oh, sir, surely we're not going to keep working on the case with half our team in the hospital," Garcia protested. "Plus we need to find out who hurt my babies and burned their house down."

"Of course we're going to look into the case with Will and JJ," Hotch answered, "but our first priority has to be the serial killer. We can't let our personal feelings interfere with . . . . "

"Our personal feelings?" Morgan interrupted him. "Our personal feelings, Hotch? That son of a bitch, whoever he was, nearly killed three of our own, and you're worried about our personal feelings? Man, my personal feelings right now are all I care about. Reid's in an operating room and who knows where JJ and Will are, and you're worried about . . . ."

Rossi put both his hands up in a calming gesture. "Wait, wait, wait," he placated them. "I know things that you don't know, and I've already solved problems you haven't even thought of. I promise, this is the best way. Hotch, you obviously haven't been outside for a while. Look out the window. We're not getting back to the office anytime soon. However, Blake should be here any minute with all of the case records and Jack in tow. And Morgan, if you'll check out the second room on the left down the hall, you'll find that Will and JJ are safely hidden away with their own private nurse. As soon as Reid is out of surgery they'll be bringing him up here as well. And Garcia, the last room on the left has a fully-functioning computer lab, plus Blake is also bringing your laptop. So this is the perfect base of operations for us to work on our case. And it is one case, not two."

That stopped all three of his colleagues from the protestations they'd been about to make. Instead they all voiced some version of, "What?"

"Trust me," Rossi advised. "I had a few minutes to talk with Will while you two were taking care of Reid back at the house. When you hear what he has to say, you'll see what I mean. Our serial killer and our abusive arsonist are definitely one case."


	7. It's a Woman?

**AN: I am slowly getting to the point where we find out what happened to Reid. Next chapter, I promise. In the meantime, thanks to all the followers and favoriters, and especially reviewers. Happy Mother's Day to all of you who are moms. Another year where I haven't killed my kids!**

At that moment Rossi's phone buzzed in his pocket. Opening it, he listened without speaking for several seconds, then said, "Send them up." He walked over and used his key in a pad beside the elevator doors to send it down to the floor below. "Blake and Jack are here," he let the others know. "No one can come up unless I use this key to send the elevator down. Total security."

Henry left the television as Clifford ended and wandered over to Garcia. He hugged around her legs, coughed a few times, and then said miserably, "Aunt Penny, I don't feel so good. My froat hurts and my chest hurts."

"Oh my god, sweetness," Garcia exclaimed, picking the boy up. "In all the excitement we completely forgot about getting you checked out." She kissed his forehead tenderly. "Oh, baby, you're burning up. Rossi, I need to take him back down to the emergency room. Surely it's cleared out some by now."

"Not to worry," Rossi told her. "I have two young interns who were going to be stuck here during the storm anyway who jumped at the chance to earn a few extra dollars. One of them, a Dr. Francis, is waiting in the OR to come up with Reid. The other one, Dr. Grosso, is catching a nap in the room I assigned them, the last one on the right, across from Garcia's lair-away-from-home. Why don't you go wake her up and let her take a look at Henry?"

As Garcia started down the hallway, the elevator doors slid open and Blake walked out with Jack, who immediately ran to hug his father. "Daddy, have you seen all the snow? It's crazy deep. We got to ride in an army car with a real soldier to drive it, and even then it was sliding all over the place. Aunt Alex was scared, but I wasn't."

"That's great, Jack," Hotch said, the look in his eyes indicating that it was anything but. "That sounds like fun."

"It wasn't that bad, Hotch," Blake reassured him, "and we're here now."

"Right," Hotch said, giving a barely perceptible shake to his head. "Alright, we need to get started on the case. Blake, you and Rossi work on getting the board set back up here. I presume there's a meeting room?" he asked Rossi.

Rossi pointed, "Far side of the kitchen. Come on, Alex. Let's go down and get the files."

"Good," Hotch agreed. "Morgan and I will interview Will and JJ, if they're up to it. Jack, did you finish your homework?"

"Hours ago." Jack rolled his eyes. "What is there to do here?"

"You may watch television as long as you keep the volume reasonable," Hotch granted, which sent Jack rushing into the living room. Rossi and Blake got back on the elevator, and Morgan and Hotch headed for the room where Rossi had indicated Will and JJ were resting.

Knocking on the door and pushing it open without waiting for an answer, Hotch took a quick inventory, sweeping his eyes around the room like he would a crime scene. JJ and Will were lying in hospital beds, and there were some monitors beeping next to them, but that was where the similarity to a traditional hospital room ended. The floor was covered in a deep maroon rug which picked up the accents in the textured navy wallpaper. Two plush recliners sat on either side of the large windows. In one of them a young, dark-haired woman, presumably the nurse Rossi had hired, sat texting on a pink I-phone. She jumped to her feet as the two agents entered.

"Oh! Sorry, sirs! I was just . . . I was . . . ." She gestured helplessly toward the phone in her hand.

"It's all right," Hotch told her kindly. "We don't expect you to work every second. How are they doing?"

"I'm fine," JJ answered for her from the bed closest to the door. "A bump on the head, that's all. I've had worse after a good workout in the gym. So will you please tell Nurse Hatchett here to let me get up and go find my son?"

"Easy, Wonder Woman." Morgan walked to the side of JJ's bed and put a brotherly hand on her shoulder, keeping her from getting up. "Garcia's getting Henry checked out by a doctor as we speak, and you had a bit more than a little bump on the head."

JJ turned pleading eyes toward their team leader. "Hotch?"

"Sorry, JJ, Morgan's right. Henry's in good hands, and you need to rest. But in the meantime, are the two of you up for some questions?"

"We are," Will spoke for the first time, his New Orleans' drawl a bit weaker than usual. He pushed the button that raised the head of his bed so he could sit up a little, wincing as the movement jostled his body.

JJ looked at her husband, then nodded her head. "Ask away," she agreed, "but I plan to see Henry as soon as we're done."

Morgan patted the shoulder his hand was resting on. "Of course you will, little mama."

"Nurse . . . " Hotch paused, waiting for a name.

"You can call me Stephanie," the young woman supplied.

"All right, then, Stephanie, would you mind waiting in the other room? You can check out the kitchen and see if there's any food in there. If not, I'm sure Agent Rossi will be making some appear shortly. And you're welcome to text with your friends, but please don't tell anyone who you're working for."

"Oh, no, sir, of course not. I know how to be discrete." Stephanie slipped out the door and was gone.

Hotch turned back to the couple on the beds. "Dave says our two cases are one case."

"What cases?" Will asked, confusion showing on his face. "Didn't y'all just get back from a case in Hawaii?"

Hotch realized that he was inadvertently leading the witness. Difficult as it might be, he needed to think of Will and JJ as victims, not as fellow law enforcement officers or friends. "Never mind," he covered. "Will, tell us what happened from the beginning."

The younger man took a deep breath before he began, wincing again and wrapping an arm around his ribs. "I had just put Henry down for his nap. He didn't want to fall asleep because he knew his mama was going to be home soon. I finally got him to lay down by promising she would be there when he woke up, and read him three books until he fell asleep. I had gone into the kitchen to clean up the lunch dishes when the front doorbell rang. I didn't want it to wake up Henry, so I rushed to answer it without paying a lot of attention to who it was.

"The next thing I remember I was tied to a chair in the living room with a wicked headache. I couldn't see anyone at first. She was standing behind me."

"Wait a second," Morgan interrupted. "She? It was a woman?"

"Are you sure?" Hotch asked.

"Oh, yeah, I'm sure," Will answered. "I had the next hour or so to not do much of anything except listen to her voice. She kept asking me, "Where is she? And when I told her I didn't know who she was talking about, she'd hit me. She had a weapon or something . . . I think it was a baseball bat. At first she didn't hit me hard at all, like she wasn't really interested in hurting me, but the more I couldn't answer her question, the harder she swung. It finally got to the point where I was just saying, 'I don't know,' over and over, and she was beating on me in a frenzy."

"What stopped her?" asked Hotch as the man paused.

"Jennifer," Will said simply, reaching out between the beds and taking her hand. "We didn't hear her open the door, but she called out as soon as she came in. My attacker freaked out. She said, 'Who the hell is that?' and ran toward the hall. I tried to warn her, I swear I did, but before I could get a deep enough breath to yell, there was a bang and a thud, and the woman came back in dragging JJ by the legs." Will laid he head back down on the bed, obviously exhausted by the telling. Hotch and Morgan glanced at each other; neither had heard anything so far that would make Rossi assume the attack was tied to their current case.

"When I came to . . ." JJ picked up the story.

"Wait," Morgan said. "You came to? Before I carried you outside?" Instead of getting a clearer understanding of what had happened in the LaMontaigne household, he felt more confused.

"Yeah, I woke up," answered JJ. "I don't know how much later."

Will filled in the gap, and now he was talking directly to his wife. "It was at least half an hour, maybe more. She asked me who you were. At first I didn't want to tell her you were my wife. I thought it might set her off worse, make her want to hurt you. But she didn't seem interested in causing you pain, just in finding out who you were. I finally said we were married, and then she wanted to know your name.

"That's where I woke up," JJ said. "She was asking you my name, and you were asking her why she wanted to know, and she was swinging a bat at you. I was trying to get up, trying to stop her, and I guess she heard me, because she spun around. But she still didn't attack me. She got behind Will and told me she'd stop hurting him if I'd get him to tell her what she wanted to know. So I asked her what she wanted. I was trying to get my head together enough to be able to fight her, but things were still kind of fuzzy. I thought if I could keep her talking, either my head would clear or, Morgan, you and Reid would get back. I told Will to tell her what she wanted to know, and he said that he couldn't, he didn't know where the girl was."

"I didn't," Will repeated. "I still don't."

"Who was she asking about?" Hotch wanted to know.

"Someone named Alaina Tew," replied Will. "I'm sure I've never heard of her."

"Alaina Tew?" Morgan asked. "Isn't that the name of our eyewitness?"

"That's what I said," JJ agreed. "And as soon as I said it, our attacker completely froze. She seemed to go from angry to scared. She asked me what my name was. I told her. And she said, 'Agent Jareau, with the FBI?' And when I said yes, she stepped out from behind Will, and that's the last thing I remember."

Hotch understood now how Rossi knew the two cases were one. "She was attacking the wrong person," he elucidated. "She thought Will was the FBI agent. Somehow she knew that there was a witness, and that Agent Jareau with the FBI had her in custody. It just never occurred to her that the agent was a woman."


	8. He's Awake

**AN: Reid finally wakes up, albeit very briefly. Hope I provided sufficient whump to keep you interested.**

There was a knock at the door, followed by Rossi sticking in his head. "They just called from downstairs," he informed them. "Reid's out of surgery. He'll be in the recovery room for about an hour, and then they'll be bringing him to his room up here."

"Did they update you on his condition?" Hotch asked.

"Just that he's okay."

"Hotch, I'd like to . . . " Morgan started at the same time as Hotch said, "Morgan, I want you to . . . ." They both stopped, then Hotch continued, "I want you to go down to the recovery room. Reid shouldn't be alone when he wakes up."

"Exactly what I was going to ask," Morgan answered.

"I'll finish up with Will and JJ," Hotch said. "And then the three of us will start working the profile. We'll see you when they bring Reid up."

Morgan simply nodded as he headed to the elevator. Rossi used his key, and Morgan started down to the second floor where the operating room recovery was located. As he descended, he thought about all the injuries Reid had sustained over his years in the BAU and hoped that this one, like all the others, would prove to be less life-changing than it had the possibility of being. Reid was stronger than anybody gave him credit for when they saw his lanky form; he just wished the younger man wouldn't keep having to prove it.

Approaching the nursing station, Morgan pulled out his badge. Chances were good that the same people would be working that were there before, given that everything was shut down because of the snow, but he figured he'd avoid any hassle. "I'm here for Dr. Spencer Reid. I understand he's out of surgery."

"Oh, Agent Morgan." The nurse at the station was indeed the same one who had been there the entire time he'd sat in the waiting room before. She was still pretty and vivacious, but was starting to look tired after more than fifteen hours on duty. "Dr. Nugent said to take you straight back to the recovery room. Dr. Reid is still unconscious, but it shouldn't be too much longer until he wakes up. I'll page the doctor and let him know you're here."

"Thank you," Morgan said, grateful that the hospital was being a bit more forthcoming with him now. Whether it was because they were less busy or because of Rossi's influence, at least they were willing to give him information. He followed the nurse through a set of double doors into an area marked "Hospital Staff Only."

The recovery area was considerably calmer than the emergency room had been earlier, but it seemed to be almost as crowded. "Sorry we couldn't give him a private space," the nurse told him quietly. "With the weather we've had more than our usual number of operations, and since no one can leave, we don't have rooms available to send people to once they're stable. We're actually glad that you have somewhere to take Dr. Reid. We need the room."

"It's fine," Morgan replied absently, his attention focusing on the still form in the hospital bed. Reid was lying on his right side, with pillows behind his back to keep him from rolling over. His left arm was in a sling with a strap binding it to his chest so it would be completely immobile. Under the hospital gown Morgan could see bandages from Reid's neck down his torso until they disappeared under the sheet thrown over Reid's legs. But most disturbing was the upturned side of Reid's face. From his nose to his ear, the skin was a mottled black and blue, with the skin around the eye so swollen that there didn't seem to be a socket at all. Almost unconsciously Morgan put out a finger to touch the distended skin gently. "Oh, pretty boy," he breathed, "that looks like it really hurts."

Morgan then turned to the multitude of machines beeping and hissing beside the bed. There was a heart monitor and a pulse oximeter, both emitting steady signals indicating that Reid's heart was beating and he had sufficient oxygen in his blood. There was a ventilator assisting his breathing, and an IV dripping a clear liquid into his good arm. To Morgan's untrained eye everything seemed to be copasetic, but he had to admit to himself that he really didn't know how the various meters should read. As long as there were no alarms going off, and the displays on the monitors looked like ancient video games, he had to assume that everything was okay.

"Agent Morgan?"

He had been examining the equipment so intently he hadn't heard footsteps coming up behind him. He jumped slightly, his hand automatically going toward his gun until he mentally shook himself and turned around calmly, sticking out his hand toward the man in a white coat now standing behind him. "That's me," he said evenly. "You must be Dr. Nugent. How's our boy doing?"

The doctor shook his hand and then opened up the file he was holding. "Remarkably well, considering what happened to him. Have you been told anything about his condition yet?"

Morgan shook his head, so the doctor went on. "He has a rather severe concussion, but fortunately no skull fracture. Three broken ribs and a fourth one cracked; one of them punctured his left lung causing it to collapse. The ventilator is helping him to breathe right now, especially since he also suffered from smoke inhalation and a myocardial contusion."

Morgan stopped him by putting up his hand. "A myocardial what?"

"Contusion. Basically he has bruised his heart. His EKG isn't showing any signs of permanent damage at this point. We'll have to see when he wakes up if he's able to breathe sufficiently on his own without the ventilator. If he has to struggle too hard, it could lead to symptoms very similar to a heart attack. He'll need to keep calm and quiet until he can heal."

"I understand," Morgan said. "Anything else?"

"His scapula came fairly close to shattering, but we were able to piece it back together with pins and a plate. It should heal well enough. Is he left handed?"

"No."

"Good. He might lose a little bit of fine motor skill in that hand due to nerve damage, but it should be negligible if it's not his dominant hand. Otherwise, considerable bruising, but nothing as bad as it would have been had there not been snow on the ground. He should wake up soon."

"Thank you doctor," Morgan said.

"There is one more thing," Dr. Nugent mentioned. "I see in his file that he doesn't want to use any narcotics."

Morgan's response was instantaneous. "No. No narcotics. It's very important to him."

"I'm afraid that simply is not going to be possible. His injuries are extensive and his pain is going to be extreme. His injured heart and lung are not going to be able to withstand the stress without the aid of some exceedingly strong medications."

"No." Morgan shook his head. "There has to be another option. Maybe you can keep him sedated until he can heal."

"Normally I would," the doctor agreed, "but with the smoke inhalation, we need him to be able to cough in order to keep his lungs clear, and he won't be able to do that if he's sedated. Look, I know it's not in the file, per se, exactly why he's so adamant about this, but I can guess. It's not like I've never seen it before. We'll keep the dosage well-regulated and set it up so he can't take more than he needs. We'll monitor him carefully; from what I've been able to gather he's going to have his own full-time nurse. We're not going to let anything bad happen to him." He patted Morgan's arm. "This is going to be okay, Agent. I promise."

Morgan took a deep breath before he responded. "Okay. You're the doctor. If you say he has to have them, then he has to have them. But I'm trusting you. He's been through too much already."

There was a subtle change in the sound of the monitors behind Morgan, followed by a weak cough. "Reid." Morgan instantly moved to his friend's side. The doctor shifted to the far side of the bed and started checking vital signs. "C'mon, kid. Time to wake up." Morgan took Reid's good hand into his own, noticing how cool the long fingers felt.

Reid coughed again, then slowly blinked open his eyes. He squinted, even though the lights in the recovery room were not particularly bright. Morgan felt his hand tighten spasmodically as Reid registered the agony his body was undoubtedly feeling. He knew Reid wouldn't be able to speak with the ventilator tube in, but he also knew Reid would try. He expected Reid to ask what had happened, or to ask for pain medication, but what actually formed from his mouth surprised the older agent. "Henry." Reid coughed several more times, ending in a near-sob as he tried to turn over on his back.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Morgan cautioned, attempting to hold Reid down without causing him any further damage. Dr. Nugent started preparing a syringe in case it was needed, but Morgan managed to calm the patient without it. "Reid, settle down. You got Henry. You carried him out of the fire and off the roof without a scratch. He's fine. He's with JJ and Will right now. You need to relax. Don't fight me. Lie still, kid."

Reid blinked several times, finally focusing on the dark man next to him. "Henry's okay?" Morgan read off his lips.

"He's fine," Morgan reassured, hoping he was being truthful. "Right now I'm worried about you. How are you feeling?"

After shutting his eyes again and contemplating for a few minutes, Reid finally frowned and gave a thumbs down.

Dr. Nugent was injecting something into Reid's IV line. "You should feel better in just a minute, Dr. Reid."

Reid hadn't realized the doctor was beside the bed since he was standing behind him. He swung his arm back to try and knock the syringe out of the doctor's hand before he began coughing uncontrollably.

Looking at the doctor across Reid's spasming form, Morgan said, "I got this. Reid?" He waited for the coughing to subside. "You're going to have to have some narcotics. It's the only way."

He had thought it was going to be an argument, but the brief spate of coughing had apparently exhausted the young man. Without another word Reid eyes fluttered closed and he slipped back to sleep.

"Sleep is good," Dr. Nugent said. "Let him sleep as much as he can. The nurse will need to wake him up every couple of hours so he can cough, but other than that, the best thing he can do is sleep. We'll hook him up to a morphine pump so that he can self-medicate, but it won't allow him to overdo it. I'm going to leave him on the ventilator for now. When he wakes up a little more fully we'll test out his breathing and see how he's doing. I understand your team is taking up residence upstairs."

"Yes."

"Then I'll have the orderlies take Dr. Reid on up. He'll probably rest better in his private room up there than he can down here anyway."

Morgan stepped away to call Rossi to have the elevator sent down while the doctor switched out the bag attached to Reid's IV line and paged a couple of orderlies. The sooner they could get Reid comfortable – well, as comfortable as he was going to be – the better.


	9. Rest, Finally

**AN: Two chapters in one weekend; be impressed. Of course, I had to go back and change some of the medical info in the previous chapter, so apologies to anyone who thought they were getting another chapter only to find the same one. Either way, Reid's off the ventilator now, so I don't have to worry about getting that part right any more. I do appreciate the people who let me know I'd messed it up. I want the story to be good, so all constructive reviews are welcome.**

Garcia and Hotch entered the conference room together. After getting a mostly clean bill of health from the doctor, Henry was snuggling with his mom in her hospital bed. They would need to keep an eye on him and make him take it easy – no small task with a four-year-old – but he was basically okay. Rossi and Blake had the board up and covered with pictures as well as a map of the DC area. Rossi was reading off kill sites while Blake poked stick pins into the map. "I don't think this is going to do much good," she was saying. "Since they're all found where they were killed, and there aren't any prior abductions, there probably aren't going to be enough points for a geographic profile." She stepped back and surveyed her work. "No, I don't see anything. Maybe Reid could."

"Unfortunately I don't think Reid is going to be able to help us out on this one," Hotch said, taking a seat at the long table. "We're going to have to use other means."

"I am the best other means in the business," Garcia proclaimed. "I had several programs running when we left the office. I'll go down to my new lair and see if anything's come up yet."

"Alex, Alaina Tew is in protective custody down on the third floor of the hospital," Hotch said. "Why don't you come down with me and we'll try talking to her. If she saw the Unsub killing her parents, and we can get her to tell us about her, then we might not have to do anything else."

"Her?" Blake asked, surprised. "What makes you think the Unsub is female? That's unusual, especially with stabbing victims."

"Because she's the same person who attacked Will and JJ," Hotch explained, "and they definitely identified her as female, although they never saw her face. She wore a mask. I'll explain on our way down."

"I'll get the elevator for you," Rossi offered, "and while you're gone I'll make us all some dinner. By the time you get back Morgan should be back up here with Reid and everyone will be hungry."

"Is there food in that kitchen?" asked Blake.

"Alex," Rossi voice wasn't condescending, but only because it was Rossi, "this entire floor is set up for the President of the United States to use in case of emergency. Trust me, there is more and better food in that kitchen than at the finest restaurant in the city."

A little over an hour later a group of 12 sat around the carved wooden table in the dining room. With the exception of Reid, who was now safely asleep in his room with his private nurse in attendance, the entire team was present. Additionally they had Jack, Will and Henry, the two doctors Rossi had hired, and Nurse Stephanie. Rossi had cooked enough pasta Primavera for an army, along with salad and French rolls. "The rolls were frozen," he admitted, "but the salad fixings were fresh. I hate to think how much food they throw away every week if they keep fresh fruits and vegetables in here at all times, but it certainly is nice for us."

By unspoken agreement no one talked about the case during dinner. Instead they told funny stories about one another to keep the kids amused and to give their own tired brains a break. Once dinner was over, however, Will took the children into the living room to play Go Fish with a deck of cards he had found in the bedside table in their bedroom. Dr. Grosso went in to check on Reid, and Dr. Francis and Nurse Stephanie offered to do the dishes. The team protested that they were medical personnel, not scullery maids, but the two women insisted that they had nothing more pressing to do at the moment and as long as they were getting paid to be there, they might as well earn their keep.

"Rossi, how is it that in a world where less than a third of physicians are female, you manage to get not one but two women doctors at your beck and call?" Morgan asked with a sly grin.

"I only hire the best," Rossi proclaimed. "I can't help it if the best is so often female. Beside, I'm an equal opportunity employer; Reid's nurse is male."

"All right," Hotch said as the team filed into the conference room and took their seats, "speaking of equal opportunity, thanks to Will and JJ we now know that the Unsub is female." He had the couple repeat their story for the team members who had not yet heard all of it. Then Hotch continued. "Unfortunately Alex and I had no luck with Alaina Tew; she was asleep when we went down, and we didn't want to wake her up. Garcia, any luck with your programs?"

"Sir, I have run these victims' lives from every direction of the compass. If they have something in common, it's got to be tangential at best. Different occupations, different social circles, they don't shop in any of the same stores or attend any of the same churches. The only slight connection I found was that Sarah Beth Thomas and Jenny Tew had both been patients in this very hospital sometime in the last month, but they were not here at the same time, they were in different units with completely different medical staff, and none of the other victims have been patients here. The four college boys have only gotten medical attention on campus since they've lived here, and the Brooks have a private doctor in Bethesda."

"All right," Hotch said. "While this weather is aggravating, it does buy us some time. If we can't go anywhere, then we don't have to worry about our Unsub going anywhere either. If she's going to kill anyone tonight she's going to have to do it wherever she is, and she's not going to be able to escape from there."

"Hotch, I think we should have Alaina Tew join us up here in the penthouse," Rossi suggested. "She can't be feeling very safe or happy down in a hospital room with police guards on her door. Maybe she'll be able to open up in a more relaxed environment."

"She would be safer with us," Morgan added.

JJ concurred. "She might feel more comfortable with other children around, too, even if they are a bit younger."

Hotch thought about it, then nodded his head. "I agree she should come up here. However, I'm getting uncomfortable with the number of outsiders who have access to our new headquarters. I don't want to bring up any of her police protection or medical personnel."

"That shouldn't be a problem," Rossi said. "She doesn't have any actual medical issues, does she?"

"That's a negative," Garcia replied. "Except for the fact that she's not talking, she's been ruled physically healthy."

"Morgan, Blake, you go bring her up," Hotch directed. "Make sure you explain to her what's happening and how safe she'll be here. We don't need to traumatize her any more than she has been. Everyone else, check with Rossi for your room assignments if you don't already know and grab some sleep. We'll start again first thing in the morning. It's been a long day, and I, for one, am starting to have a difficult time thinking straight."

Later that night Morgan was lying in bed in the room he was sharing with Rossi completely unable to sleep. He was exhausted, but he couldn't get the picture of Reid flying off the roof out of his mind. Even though Dr. Nugent had assured him that Reid was going to be fine, and Dr. Grosso had concurred after they brought him upstairs, there was a part of Morgan that simply couldn't believe that Reid could have survived such a fall without massive permanent injuries. Looking at the clock on the bedside table, the profiler realized that, if he hadn't fallen asleep by 2 a.m., he probably wasn't going to. Getting out of bed quietly so as not to disturb the snoring man in the next bed, Morgan slipped out of his room and walked down to the room where Reid was staying.

Pushing open the door, he saw that Reid's nurse was checking his breathing. "How's he doing?" he asked the young man quietly. The head of Reid's bed was raised so that he was semi-sitting. Dr. Grosso had said he would make it easier for him to get in air.

"He's struggling a little since the doctor took the breathing tube out, but not badly enough to need to put it back. You see this monitor?" he asked, pointing to one of the screens. "As long as it reads greater than 90%, it's okay. Lower than that and we'll need to call the doctor." Morgan noticed that the number was at 92. He also noticed that the nurse, whose name was Michael, was trying to hide a yawn.

"Look, Mike, I can't sleep anyway. Why don't you go take the other bed in the room where I was sleeping, and I'll stay in here with him."

"Are you sure?" Michael asked. "I'm getting paid to look after him."

"Nobody works 24 hours a day, not even us," Morgan reassured him. "Go grab a few hours of shut-eye, man. I promise I'll call you if the number goes too low."

"I guess it'll be okay. An alarm will go off if it gets down to 90. Just be sure to come and get me if you're unsure about anything. That's his morphine pump. If he wakes up in pain, he should push the button."

"Got it. Go get some rest."

"You're sharing the room with Agent Rossi, right?"

"That's right. Two doors down. I'll call you if we need you."

After the nurse had left, Morgan picked up one of the recliners and placed it close beside Reid's bed. He ruffled a hand through Reid's hair, convincing himself again that his friend was still there and still in – mostly – one piece. Then he settled back and shut his eyes. Within seconds he was asleep.


	10. Dealing

**AN: This chapter does absolutely nothing to advance the plot of the story. It is, however, extremely angsty. I just wanted to write it. Feel free to skip it if that's not your thing. I'll try to get a chapter that's useful up before the end of the long weekend.**

Morgan wasn't sure how much later it was when he was awakened by a noise. It took him a minute to realize where he was, but when he recognized the figure struggling in the bed next to him, he quickly shook off his confusion and focused on his friend. "Reid? Reid. Are you having trouble breathing? Reid, can you talk to me?" Some subconscious part of his brain realized that there was no alarm sounding, and that the number of the monitor read 94, so the problem shouldn't be with Reid's breathing. Morgan took a deep breath himself and spoke more calmly. "Hey, kid. What's going on?

By the light of the monitors Morgan could barely see the shape on the bed. "Is the dark bothering you? Hold on a second." Morgan reached over and turned on the small bedside light. The far side of the room was still in deep shadows, but now he clearly could see Reid. He quickly ascertained that the difficulty wasn't the dark either, since Reid's eyes were squeezed shut. Looking more closely, he saw that Reid was also gritting his teeth and had the fingers of his right hand clutched into a fist. Morgan reached out cautiously and touched Reid's arm.

Reid's right eye flew open (the left was still swollen shut) and he made a visible effort to relax. "Hi, Morgan. Did I wake you up? Sorry." Reid's voice was rough and strained.

"Are you kidding me, pretty boy?" Morgan reached up and ruffled Reid's hair. "My only goal in life right now is to make sure that you're taken care of. You really scared me flying off of that roof with Henry in your arms."

"Sorry," Reid repeated.

"Quit apologizing. How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine."

Morgan sat back and pressed a palm to his forehead. "Not the typical Reid 'fine.'"

"What do you mean?"

"'Fine' is your answer whenever you feel like hell. You may not have a tell at poker, but that's one we all know from real life."

Reid turned his head more toward Morgan, and the older man noticed again how bruised and swollen the left side of his face was. "That may be, but in this case it happens to be true. I'm fine." But at that moment Reid began to cough. At first Morgan just waited for him to finish, but as the cough went on he began to get worried. Soon Reid was gasping in between coughs, and Morgan saw that the number on the oxygen monitor was dropping right before the alarm went off. He jumped up and was getting ready to head out the door and wake up Michael and Dr. Grosso when Reid managed to take a deep breath, reached out, grabbed his arm, and stopped him. "No, wait." He coughed one more time, then stopped. "Just push the button on the machine, Morgan. I really am okay. I'm breathing, I promise."

Morgan turned back from the door. When he saw that Reid's coughing had honestly subsided, he reached across him to the monitor and pushed the alarm button. The noise stopped, and Morgan noted that the number had climbed up to 91, still low, but not life-threatening. Shaking his head, he sank back down onto his chair. "God, Reid, you're going to give me a heart attack."

Reid gave him a half-smile. "Sorry."

Morgan studied Reid's face carefully. The younger man was taking shallow breaths through clenched teeth again, and while his good eye was open Morgan was fairly certain that he wasn't really seeing anything in front of him. As he watched, a single tear rolled down Reid's face. Morgan reached out his finger and brushed it away. "Reid, have you used any of that morphine lately?"

"I'm fine." He said it so forcefully Morgan could tell he was trying to convince himself more than he was trying to convince Morgan.

"Pretty boy, please," Morgan said, "you are so far away from fine right now. Look, you have several badly broken bones, lung and heart problems, and more bruises than your average boxer. It's perfectly acceptable for you to take some pain medication. In fact, it's required. The doctor said you wouldn't heal without it."

"Morgan, I can't."

Morgan wasn't sure how to handle Reid's anxiety. He decided to go with a light touch. "Hey, Reid, c'mon. No one is going to think any less of you."

Reid's hand was opening and closing convulsively. He brought it up blindly and clutched Morgan's arm. "You don't understand. I can't!"

Realizing that Reid wasn't going to be jollied into taking his medicine, Morgan went for the jugular. "Reid, you have to. Dr. Nugent said that if you didn't take it, you could suffer symptoms similar to a heart attack."

"I don't care."

Morgan was shocked. "What?"

"I don't care. Morgan, you don't know what it was like. Getting off the drugs was the worst experience of my life. Worse than Tobias, worse than getting shot, worse than Anthrax. Worse than this. I'd rather die than go through that again. I will die before I do."

Morgan could tell that Reid was reaching the point of exhaustion. He needed to calm him down, whatever his decision about the medication.

"Okay, Reid. It's okay." Morgan eased Reid back against the bed. Reid hissed as he put too much weight against his ribs and shoulder, but then slowly relaxed against the pillows. "Reid. Kid. Listen to me. Are you listening?"

Reid nodded tiredly. "Go ahead."

"We are not going to let you get addicted to drugs. The doctor promised me that you could take the recommended amount without having to worry about getting re-addicted. Just like anything else, drugs can be bad or they can be good. This is one of those times that they're good. I know you don't want to . . . "

Reid interrupted him again. "That's just it Morgan. I do want to."

"What? I don't understand."

"I want to push that button so much it makes it hard to think."

"That's a good thing, kid. Just push it. You're in a lot of pain."

"That's not why I want to push it." Reid looked over at Morgan again, and the older man could see the tears gleaming in his eyes. "I want to push it because I know how good it would feel to be able to forget for a while. Morgan, I never get to forget anything. Even when I'm asleep, I dream about the things we see every day. I dream about Maeve." The tears started falling at the mention of her name. "The only way I managed not to go back to it after she died was because I didn't have any available. Why do you think I didn't leave my apartment for two weeks? I didn't want to give myself the opportunity. And now, it's right here, right beside me, and all I have to do is push that button, and I want to so much. And, Morgan, I'm so afraid that if I push it, I won't ever want to stop."

At first Morgan didn't know what to say. While he technically knew the adage "once an addict, always an addict", he never thought about his friend that way. In his mind, Reid had had a problem, but he had overcome it, and it was in the past. The idea that the younger man still craved the drug, that he still thought about it in any positive way at all, had simply never occurred to him. Accepting the reality that Reid wanted to use again upset his world view. On the other hand, looking at that bruised face and the abundance of bandages, Morgan knew that the morphine was a necessity, not just some feel-good measure that Reid could take or leave as he chose. With that in mind, he took hold of Reid's good right hand and squeezed it tightly. "Reid, man, I'm not even going to pretend that I know what you're going through. I don't know what it's like to overcome an addiction. I don't know what it's like to have an eidetic memory. And I sure as hell don't know what's it's like to lose someone like you lost Maeve. When Prentiss died, well, when we thought she died, that's the closest I've ever come, and it's not even in the same world with what you went through. But I do know that you're one of the strongest men I've ever met in my life. You have gone through all that, and you haven't gone back to the drugs."

"I wanted to."

"I don't care. Or maybe I do, because that makes you even more amazing. You wanted to, but you didn't."

"Morgan, stop," Reid demanded. "Just stop. I'm not amazing. I'm not strong, I'm not even average. I'm just some lousy druggie who . . . "

"No!" Morgan jumped up from his seat and started pacing around the room. He was angry enough to hit something, but had enough presence of mind to know that wouldn't help the situation. "No, Reid, you are not 'some druggie.' I don't ever want you to think about yourself like that."

There was a knock on the door. Morgan froze in the middle of his pacing, suddenly remembering where they were and that there were people sleeping in rooms all around them. "Come in," he said with much more control.

Reid's nurse, Michael, stuck his head in the door. "I thought I heard shouting," he stated uncertainly. "Is everything okay? Does Dr. Reid need anything?"

Morgan all but held his breath. This was Reid's opportunity to get him kicked out of the room, if he so chose, and Morgan hadn't said everything he wanted to say to his friend.

Reid shook his head weakly. "No, thanks, Michael. Everything's fine. I don't need anything."

"Is your pain level all right?" the nurse asked.

"It's fine. I'm fine." Reid laughed half-heartedly. "Of course I'm fine. Good night, Michael."

"Okay. Good night." Michael withdrew from the room and shut the door.

The brief interlude had given Morgan a chance to calm himself down. He sat heavily down in the recliner. "Look, Reid. Here's the deal. I know I call you kid all the time, but, the truth is, you're a grown man, and I trust you to know what's best for yourself. I you think you shouldn't use the morphine, then I support that."

This time Reid reached out and took Morgan's hand. "Thank you. I really appreciate it."

"No problem, kid. Do you think you can go back to sleep?"

Reid made a low noise deep in his throat, somewhere between a laugh and a groan. "No way. Not tonight. It's your job to keep my mind off of the pain."

Morgan grinned and squeezed his fingers. "So, what are we going to do the rest of the night?"

"What time is it?" Reid smiled back at him.

Morgan pulled out his phone and checked. "Five seventeen a.m. We probably have a couple of hours to kill before everyone else gets up."

"Poker?" Reid asked hopefully.

"There's cards in the living room; the kids were playing Go Fish earlier. I'll be right back."

When he returned he had the deck of cards and a roll of aluminum foil. He thought for a second that Reid had fallen asleep after all, but then his good eye popped open.

"What's that for?" asked Reid.

"I saw this in a movie," Morgan answered, pulling a tray table over to the bed. He set the foil box in front of Reid, and then stuck cards into it so they stood up between the box and the lid. "I figure you might need a little help holding your cards."

A half smile came across Reid's face. "You deal."


	11. Too Close for Comfort

David Rossi was awakened by his cell phone buzzing next to his bed. Grabbing at it, he saw through bleary eyes that it was only 5:27 a.m., much too early for a friendly call. "Rossi." He listened for a moment, then hit the "end" button. "Dammit! Morgan, get up," he called to the next bed. He then realized that the figure underneath the covers was smaller and lighter-skinned than his teammate. "Michael?" he asked as he recognized the young nurse.

"Sorry, Agent Rossi," Michael said with a yawn, pulling the blankets up more closely around his neck.. "Agent Morgan said it would be okay for me to sleep in here."

"It's fine," Rossi answered, "you just surprised me."

Michael glanced at his watch. "It's awfully early. Did something happen?"

"Don't worry about it. You can go back to sleep. I need to wake up the rest of the team." Rossi swung his legs over the side of the bed but sat for a minute before getting the rest of the w ay up.

"That's okay," Michael replied. "I'll just grab a quick shower and then I'll go back to Dr. Reid.

Rossi said started into the adjoining bathroom. "I'll be out in five minutes, and then the bathroom is all yours."

Fifteen minutes later the team was gathered around the long table. They'd all managed to get dressed, but the only one who looked awake was Morgan, and Rossi knew that was because he'd never gone to sleep. The senior agent didn't waste any time with niceties. "We've got another body," he announced.

"Just one?" Blake asked. "That's a de-escalation. Was the murder committed somewhere where there was only one person to kill?"

"No, that was definitely not the case," Rossi answered. "The Unsub had a full range of choices for victims."

Hotch furrowed his brow. "Where did the murder take place, Dave?"

Rossi seemed reluctant to answer. "Here in the hospital. Outside the surgical recovery room. One of the surgeons, a Dr. Nugent, was stabbed between 4:45 and 5:00.

"Son of a bitch!" Morgan cried. "He was Reid's surgeon. Nobody saw anything?"

"Not according to the police detective who called me. Of course, he's stuck in the DC Metro police station, and we're right here on the premises, so maybe we can find out something he couldn't."

"How did our Unsub get here?" Blake questioned. "Is she following us? Did she realize that Will and JJ didn't die in the fire and came after them?"

"If she was after us, why kill Reid's surgeon?" asked JJ. "That had to be a pretty risky move, and it certainly didn't get her any closer to us."

"Except now we have to come out into the regular population of the hospital," Morgan pointed out. "Maybe she's trying to draw you out."

"That doesn't fit with anything we know about her so far," Hotch said. "We simply don't have enough information. Morgan and Rossi, you two go down to the crime scene. Try and figure out what happened there. Alex, where's Garcia?"

"She stayed in our room with Elaina. She didn't want her to wake up and be alone."

"Good thinking. You go back to your room and wait for Elaina to wake up. Hopefully you'll have a better chance getting her to talk this morning. Tell Garcia I need her to start checking security coverage here at the hospital. I'm going to go talk to the hospital administration and see if we can avoid a full-out panic, given that we've basically got the setup for every bad horror movie ever made."

"You want me to help you with that?" JJ asked. "I do have a little experience with talking to the public."

"No, JJ, I want you stay up here."

JJ rolled her eyes at her boss. "Hotch, I'm fine. You don't need to bench me. I can do my job."

"This is not me benching you," Hotch assured her. "We have too many people up here who would not be able to protect themselves if there were a breach. For all Rossi's assurances that this is a secure area, I want to be one-hundred percent sure that this woman can't get close to any of the children or to Reid. You're taking the first shift on guard duty. I don't want the key going down into the main part of the building for any reason, and I don't want that elevator coming up without your okay. If the administration and I decide that a public announcement needs to be made, I'll get someone else to relieve you. Until then, there's nobody I trust more to keep this sanctuary safe."

Hotch, Rossi and Morgan took the elevator together as far as the third floor, after which Hotch continued down to the administrative offices. The organized chaos that had been the recovery area the evening before was now silent and still. Yellow crime scene tape circled the nurses' station, and a uniformed policeman stopped them as they stepped from the car. The two agents flashed their i.d. badges and he let them through. They ducked under the tape and stopped to survey the scene.

"That is a lot of blood for one victim," Rossi observed, noting the large puddle on the floor under the body and the spray on the wall.

"Reid could tell us exactly how much." Morgan pulled out his phone and took some pictures. He then hit a button and put the phone to his ear. "JJ, it's Morgan. If he's still awake, show Reid the pictures I just sent you and see if he thinks there's only one victim. I know they only found one body, but maybe she took one with her. Thanks."

"Do you really think she could have carried a body through the halls without anyone noticing?" Rossi asked.

"Do you really think she could have committed a murder with this much violence without anyone noticing?" retorted Morgan.

He turned as the elevator opened again and two men in suits and heavy jackets entered the space. They too showed their badges to the uniformed officer and then walked over to Morgan and Rossi. "Agent Rossi?" asked the older of the two, reaching to shake his hand. "I recognize you from your books. I'm Detective Coley, and this is my partner Detective Wicker. It took us this long to get here with the snow and all."

Rossi took the proffered hand and introduced Morgan to the two men. "We just got here ourselves," he told them. "Tell us what you know."

Detective Wicker flicked open a notebook from his breast pocket and read them the facts from the case. "Dr. Eric Nugent was found by the head nurse on duty at 5:00 a.m. She had left him there working on paperwork approximately fifteen minutes earlier when she had gone to check on a patient whose IV had run out."

By that time Morgan had pulled on gloves and was kneeling next to the mutilated corpse, taking care to stay out of the blood. "Looks like the same knife," he muttered, comparing the wounds with his memory of the pictures from the other scenes. "It's kinda hard to tell with this much damage. It's not like there are clear individual marks."

He stood up. "Detectives, are you the leads on all these cases?"

Coley answered. "We are. Someone else had the Brooks case, but after the college boys, when we realized the cases were all related, we took them all."

"Why did you think the cases were all related?" Morgan asked. "We haven't found any ties between the victims. Instead of escalation, these could be unrelated stabbings."

"The notes," Wicker said simply.

"There were notes?" Morgan demanded, looking at Rossi. "This is the first we've heard about any notes."

Detective Wicker took a step back, somewhat intimidated by the larger agent. "We told Director Cruz when we talked to him, and sent copies to your office."

"Take it easy, son," Rossi suggested, putting a hand on the young detective's shoulder. "I know it seems like we've had this case for a while, but we haven't had a lot of time to examine the evidence. I actually did know about the notes; Agent Morgan hasn't had a chance to be informed yet."

Morgan was surprised. It felt like they had been working this case for days. When he thought about it, though, he realized it had been less than twenty-four hours, and he had spent the majority of that time otherwise occupied. He needed to get his head focused on the case if he wanted to be any help in solving it.

"Sorry, man," he apologized. "My bad. It's been a long couple of days. Tell me about the notes."

"No problem," replied Wicker, relieved that he was not at fault. He flipped to another page in this notebook. "I'm worth more," he quoted.

"That's it?" Morgan asked. "Were they all the same?"

"All the same," Coley affirmed. "We haven't seen one from this scene yet." The four men all looked around the area but didn't see any note.

"Check his pockets, Morgan," Rossi suggested.

Sure enough, the note was in his left pants pockets, blood-soaked but still legible. "I'm worth more," Morgan read off the piece of paper.

At that moment his phone chirped, indicating a text message. Pulling off his gloves, Morgan checked the screen. "Reid says, given the number of stab wounds, he'd guess that all the blood comes from this one victim," he reported.

Wicker said, "This is one pissed off guy."

"Girl," Rossi corrected. "One pissed off girl."

"You think a female did all this?" Wicker asked. "I thought stabbers were traditionally male."

"You know, Rossi, he's right," Morgan addressed his partner. "I know JJ and Will were attacked by a female, and I know she's tied to this case, but women just don't do this kind of damage with a knife. If a female is going to stab someone, it's a one-time, life-or-death kind of thing. Not this."

Rossi thought for a moment, then nodded. "You're right. We need to re-think this whole thing. I believe we've gotten everything we can from here." He pulled out his phone and called JJ, telling her the two of them were ready to come back upstairs. "Detectives, we'll be in touch as soon as we have a profile."


	12. Something Strange

When Blake returned to their bedroom, Garcia was sitting beside Alaina's bed knitting a blue and purple striped . . . something. Blake wasn't exactly sure what the object in Garcia's hands was. "What is that?" she asked softly so as not to wake the young girl.

"At the moment, it's a tail," Garcia replied. "which will eventually be attached to the rest of a puppy dog."

"You're knitting a dog?"

"I've decided Reid needs a pet. I tried to convince him to go to the pound with me and get a dog or cat from there, but he doesn't think he's ready to take care of one. So, I'm starting small."

Blake laughed quietly. "You are in interesting woman, Penelope Garcia."

"Thank you. I know. What are you doing back so quickly? False alarm?"

"I wish," Blake told her. "No, it's a real dead body, and it was found here in the hospital."

"Oh my God!" Garcia exclaimed, and then quickly lowered her voice as Alaina shifted on the bed. "Oh my God! Who was it?"

"Reid's doctor. Hotch needs you to check surveillance videos and see what you can see."

"I will use my computers as a crystal ball." Garcia stood up from the rocking chair and put her knitting down on her bed. "Are you staying here with the little one?"

"I am. Hopefully when she wakes up she'll be able to tell us something useful."

As Garcia headed down to her computer lab, Blake pulled the papers she had been grading out of her bag and took the other woman's place in the rocking chair. She briefly considered going back to bed, but decided she would feel guilty taking a nap while everyone else was working, even if she was just waiting for Alaina to wake up.

Despite her best intentions, Blake found herself nodding off when the girl began making noises. Rousing herself, Blake realized Alaina must be in the throes of a nightmare as she tossed her head on the pillow and whimpered softly. She reached over and shook the girl gently, calling her name. "Alaina. Alaina. It's Alex Blake. You need to wake up now. You're safe. We're protecting you. Wake up."

Alaina woke with a gasp, staring around with wild eyes before they fixed on Blake. With a choked cry the girl climbed off the bed and into the woman's arms, curling into her lap like a much smaller child. Blake stroked her hair while muttering nonsensical, soothing words and rocking slowly in the chair. Gradually the girl's frantic sobs faded to steady crying, and then to sniffles. Once she had calmed, Blake maneuvered her body around so Alaina was sitting on her lap. Reaching over to her bag, Blake pulled out a hairbrush and began brushing the girl's long brown hair. "Alaina, I know some really bad things happened to you, but you're safe now. My friends and I are with the FBI, and we're going to protect you. We're going to find the person who hurt your parents. We'll find her no matter what, but it would really help us if you could tell us what she looks like."

Alaina had picked up Garcia's knitting from the other bed and was twisting the yarn in her fingers. She began to shake her head back and forth slowly. Blake kept tenderly brushing the hair, speaking kindly. "No? No, you don't want to tell me? Alaina, she can't hurt you, I promise."

Finally Alaina spoke, so quietly that Blake could barely hear her. "Not a her."

"What, honey? What did you say?"

"Not a her," Alaina repeated, a little more loudly. "It was a him."

Blake forced herself to stay calm so that she wouldn't scare the child back into silence. "Alaina, did you see the person that hurt your parents?"

"Why do you keep saying that?" Alaina demanded, suddenly loud. "He didn't hurt them! He killed them! I know the difference. I'm not a baby." She started sobbing again.

"I know," Blake said, giving up the pretense of hair brushing and just holding Alaina tightly. "I know you're not a baby. You're a smart young lady who's been through a terrible experience. And I'm so, so sorry. I wish I could make it better, but I can't. All I can do is try and catch the person who did this to you, to your parents. Alaina, are you sure it was a man?"

"I didn't see him, "Alaina told her, "but I heard him. I was sleeping on the couch, and when I woke up it was dark. It took me a minute to remember where I was; I usually sleep in my bed, but our heat wasn't working very well and Daddy said I'd be warmer sleeping on the couch in front of the fireplace. He and Mommy were going to sleep on the floor on the air mattress." Her voice trailed off, apparently lost in the memory.

Blake brought her back as gently as she could. "You woke up in the dark. What happened next?"

Alaina startled slightly, and then continued. "Mommy was arguing with someone, but really quiet. She kept asking the other person what he wanted, why he was there. She said, 'I'll give you whatever you want, just don't hurt me.' Then the man said, 'It's too late to give me what I want. You had your chance. I'm worth more.' They didn't say any more after that. I heard . . . I heard . . . ." She broke into sobs again.

"It's okay," Blake assured her. "It's okay. You're doing great. You can skip that part. What happened after that?"

"I just laid there," Alaina cried. "I was so scared I couldn't move! I think maybe I even fell asleep again for a little while, because the next thing I remember it was getting light. I was scared to get up, but I knew I had to. I sat up and looked over the back of the couch, and that's when I saw them. I knew they were dead right away. There was too much blood for them to be alive."

"Is that when you went and called 911?" asked Blake.

Alaina's sobs stopped abruptly. She looked up at the agent with bewilderment in her eyes. "When I did what?" she questioned.

"Called 911," Blake repeated. "You called the police and then went back to your parents."

"No," Alaina said, "I didn't. I never got off the couch at all, until the cops came in and got me."

Blake didn't want to frighten the girl, but this was an incredibly important piece of information. She turned Alaina so that she was looking into her red-rimmed eyes. "Alaina, are you really, really sure that you didn't call the police?"

"Miss Alex, I promise. I didn't call anyone."

Blake hugged the little girl again. "Alaina, you are so brave, and you have done such a good job telling me what happened. Do you want to try and get a little more sleep?"

Without answering Alaina laid her head down against Blake's shoulder and fell back to sleep. Blake rocked for a few minutes to make sure that she was truly out, then lifted her gently onto the bed. Slipping her phone out of her pocket, she walked into the bathroom where she could keep an eye on the girl without waking her with her voice. Hitting the first number on her speed dial, she waited a moment, then spoke into the device. "Hotch? I've just been talking to Alaina Tew, and she had some very interesting information. . . . Ten minutes? You got it . . . . She's gone back to sleep for now. . . . All right, I'll be there as soon as Stephanie comes to relieve me."

When Blake walked out into the main room, she found JJ and Will sitting on the couch with Jack and Henry at their feet eating cereal. The boys were engrossed in a television program about penguins, Will was texting, and JJ was dividing her attention between the children and the elevator. Blake didn't blame her; she knew it was virtually impossible to watch a door nonstop for hours when nothing was happening with it.

"Hey," she said to the group. "Anything interesting happening in the outside world?"

Will looked up from his phone. "Looks like the city is still pretty much shut down. They're asking people to stay home unless it's an emergency."

"Makes sense," Blake commented, walking over to the window and looking out. Although the snow appeared to have stopped falling, the roads and parking lot outside were still covered in white.

Henry looked up as his program went to a commercial. "Me and Jack wanna go out 'n' play, but Mommy won't let us," he pouted.

Blake knelt down so she would be on a level with the two boys. "You know, Henry, I think the snow might be over your head. If you tried to go out there, we might lose you."

Henry's eyes grew wide, while Jack stifled a laugh. "I guess we better stay inside, Henry, until it melts down a little," he said to his smaller friend. We'll find fun things to do up here. Besides, we never get to watch this much TV at home. We better enjoy it while we can."

"You know what else?" Blake asked. "There's a new friend for you to play with sleeping in my room. Her name's Alaina, and she's eight years old. Maybe when she wakes up you two can get her some of that awesome looking cereal and the three of you can find something fun to do."

Before they could reply Reid's doctor and nurse came out of his room and approached JJ. "Agent Jareau?" Dr. Grosso said. "I hate to interrupt, but I need to go downstairs and get some different medications for Dr. Reid."

JJ was immediately on the alert. "Is something wrong?" she asked, jumping to her feet.

"No, not really," Michael reassured her. "It's just that Dr. Reid is refusing to use the morphine drip, and he needs to have some sort of pain medication."

"I'm going to get some non-narcotic pain relievers," explained Dr. Grosso.

"I thought you said the morphine wouldn't be a problem for him," JJ said accusingly.

"It wouldn't be," Dr. Grosso replied, "if he would take it. Do you want to try and convince him? Because he's not listening to anything that Michael or I tell him."

JJ looked like she was going to march into Reid's room and force him to take the morphine, but Will reached over the back of the couch and took hold of her wrist. "Let him be, darlin'."

"He thinks he has to be some kind of hero," JJ proclaimed.

"From where I stand, he is some kind of hero," Blake said softly. "If he doesn't want to take the pain medication, that is his right."

JJ seemed to shake herself, then turned back to the group. Jack and Henry were looking up at her in confusion. "Sometimes I can't get it through my head that he's not a child," she admitted.

"He's one of the bravest men I know," declared Blake.

"I know." JJ sighed and reached into her pocket, pulling out the elevator key Rossi had given her. "Go get what he needs, doctor," she said, walking over and using the key to summon the elevator. After the doctor left and Michael had gone back into Reid's room, JJ went back to the couch and pulled Henry into her lap. "Your Uncle Spence is a hero," she told him.

Henry nodded vigorously, "He catches the bad guys," he exclaimed, "and he flyed with me off of the roof. He's a superhero!" He wiggled off of his mother's lap. "Come on, Jack. Let's play superheroes."

As the two boys ran toward the bedrooms, JJ answered her buzzing cell phone. She listened for a minute before pushing the end button and walking back over to the elevator. "Hotch, Rossi and Morgan are on their way back up," she told the others. "Hotch says they have some unexpected information."

"So do I," Blake remembered. "It's time we all shared. There's something strange going on here."


	13. Figuring Things Out

**AN: I really got into the profiling part in this chapter. It's really hard to know how to have them figure things out. Sometimes on the show it seems almost magical; that's part of why Reid is so important to the team, because he can make connections no one else can. But I've incapacitated Reid. And, of course, I know what happened. If this chapter is too jumbled or confusing, or if the leaps of logic seem too unrealistic, please tell me what's wrong and I'll try to fix it.**

"The hospital administrator has managed to avoid a panic, primarily by keeping a very tight lid on things," Hotch informed the team as they gathered around the long conference table. "He's working now to get as many people as possible moved out to other hospitals in the area, but it's going to take time to clear roadways, and some people are going to be too fragile to move. The fact is that we have an entire hospital full on vulnerable people who are at the mercy of a spree killer. I don't know why she stopped with only one kill last night, but we're lucky she did."

"I don't think it's a female," Blake interrupted at the same time as Morgan said, "We're not so sure it's a girl."

"What do you mean?" Hotch asked, looking from one to the other with surprise. "JJ, didn't you and Will identify the Unsub as female?"

Before JJ could respond, Rossi had his say. "Look, I know what JJ and Will saw, Aaron, but there is just no way that the murderer from downstairs was female. Nothing about that crime scene read female, especially the multiple stab wounds."

Blake interjected, "According to Alaina, the Unsub was definitely male."

"Did she get a good look at him?" Hotch asked.

"No, but she heard him, and she is certain that it was a man that she heard."

"Maybe it's a multiple personality," JJ suggested. "It's unusual, but we have seen it before."

"Tobias Henkel and Adam," Morgan agreed.

"No, I think that there is more than one Unsub," Blake said.

JJ and Morgan were prepared to argue for the multiple-personalities idea until Blake added, "Someone called 911, and it wasn't Alaina."

"Wait, what?" Rossi asked. "Alaina didn't make the phone call?"

"She didn't," Blake averred. "She says she never left the couch until the police came."

"It could still be one Unsub with multiple personalities," Morgan pointed out. "Tobias called the police before his Raphael and Charles personas committed the murders."

"No, I think Blake is right," Rossi said. "Think back to the scene we just saw, Morgan. No offense to the ladies, but I just don't see a female managing that level of slaughter, even if she was overtaken by a male personality."

"The Unsub did manage to overcome four college-aged males," Hotch agreed.

JJ wasn't ready to let the idea go. "I don't know, guys. I know you don't like to think so, but not all girls are weak little wallflowers. I think I could take down four college guys if I had the element of surprise on my side."

"Oh, I know you could take them down, Mama Bear," Morgan laughed. "But stab them numerous times without leaving any defensive wounds on them? I'm not so sure of that."

"I'm not sure how a man could do that, either," Hotch said. "But someone did. Perhaps one partner held a weapon on them while the other one killed them."

Rossi questioned that premise. "Even with a weapon trained on them, would each of the victims have just let themselves be gutted without any attempt to save themselves? You would think at least one of them would have to be shot or at least knocked out."

"Drugs?" Blake asked.

"Not according to the ME," Hotch replied.

"Let's talk it through," Morgan suggested, going to the door of the room and turning as if he were entering. "I'm the Unsub. Blake, Hotch, Rossi and JJ, you're the college guys."

Hotch rose from the table. "All four of us were watching television together when someone came to the door." He started walking toward Morgan.

Rossi continued. "The rest of us stayed where we were. In fact, we didn't even turn around to look. Why?"

"They were probably watching the end of some sporting event," JJ speculated, "or a horror movie just as the killer is revealed."

"Or porn," Rossi commented drily. "Whatever the case, the focus was on the TV."

Hotch stood between Morgan and the others. "I open the door."

"And I stab you in the throat before you can say anything." Morgan acted out the stabbing, and Hotch stepped to the side. "One down. Now how do I get all three of you?"

Blake had stood up and gone to look at the pictures on the white board. "Do we have one that shows where all the victims were after they were killed?" she asked.

Rossi reached over and took down the picture she needed, a long shot of the living room in the boys' apartment. "Daniel, Benny, and Rodney were killed right by the door. William is in that other picture," he said, pointing, "because he was killed in the hallway, away from the other three."

"So William wasn't watching TV with the others?" JJ asked.

"The four beers on the coffee table indicate he was," Hotch replied.

"So William left the room during the television show, just before the Unsub came in," JJ conjectured. "He probably went to get more snacks or to use the bathroom."

"No," Blake said slowly, working it out in her head. "Look where he's standing, and where his hand fell. He was going for the telephone when he was killed."

"Calling 911?" Rossi asked. "He saw or heard the others being murdered and ran for the phone?"

"No way," Morgan answered. "This is a big, burly, twenty-something year old guy. I don't care how reasonable he is; if he knew his friends were being attacked, his first thought wouldn't be the telephone. It would be to save his friends."

"So he received a call and went to the phone before the Unsub came in," Hotch said.

Blake shook her head slowly. "The timing would be off. He either would have been on the phone talking or on his way back to the living room when the attack happened."

"So what would make a guy leave his three friends being assaulted and go to make a phone call?" asked Hotch.

"He didn't know they were being attacked," Blake reasoned.

"How could he not know?" Morgan asked. "Wouldn't it be obvious?"

"What about this," JJ suggested, moving Blake and Rossi back to the table as if they were sitting on the couch watching TV with her. "Daniel goes to the door." Hotch again walked up to Morgan. "The Unsub stabs him in the throat and lowers him to the ground." Morgan acted it out. "Before anyone realizes what's going on, the Unsub calls out for help."

"'Oh my God, he fainted,' something like that," Morgan said.

"But why would William go straight for the phone?" Rossi pulled his own cell out and hit a button. "Garcia? Did Daniel Escobar have any medical conditions?" He put the phone, now set on speaker, down on the table.

"Give me one minute," Garcia's voice came out of the speaker. They heard some clicking of keys before she spoke again. "Ah, I see that I am not the only psychic on the team. Indeed, All-Knowing One, Daniel suffered from a severe form of epilepsy. He had visited campus health several times after seizures."

"His roommates would know that," Morgan said, "and would call the campus EMTs right away." He went back to their re-enactment and spoke as the Unsub. "Oh my God, he's having a seizure. Someone call for help."

"We come over to help," Rossi said, doing so.

"And I stab each of you before you know what's going on," Morgan finished. "It would be hard to take two of you down that quickly, but a lot easier than four. Then I go after William and stab him before he even gets to the phone."

"And then I go into a frenzy," concluded Hotch. "If this scenario is correct, each of the men was incapacitated by the first strike. That would support the theory that he was male."

"More importantly, it would mean that our Unsub knew Daniel Escobar," Rossi pointed out. "At least well enough to know he had epilepsy and that his roommates would call for assistance if he had a seizure."

"Garcia, are you still on the line?" Hotch called out.

"Awaiting your command, my liege," she replied.

"See if there are any medical personnel connected with this hospital who would also have access to campus medical records."'

"Right away."

Morgan stopped her before she hung up the phone. "Wait, baby girl. Did you see anything on the security tapes?"

"I saw a frustrating amount of nothing helpful," she told them. "Do you have any idea how many people walk around in this hospital, even on a snowy night?"

"Reid probably knows exactly," JJ said.

"Well, the answer is, 'Too many,'" informed the tech analyst. "I didn't see anyone skulking around with a big sign on their back reading, 'I'm here to kill people.' I did get a glimpse of someone who pretty much had to be the Unsub getting off the elevator right before Dr. Nugent was killed, and back on again a few minutes later, but the person is in full medical garb, including a surgical mask and hat. The skin was light, but I couldn't even tell you hair color."

"Male or female?" Blake asked.

"If I had to guess, I'd say male, but I can't be one-hundred percent sure," Garcia admitted.

"Garcia, focus on male staff members for the moment," Hotch directed.

"Will do, sir. Garcia out." They heard the phone beep off.

"What if it's the partner who has the medical knowledge?" Blake suggested. "She could have told the Unsub about Daniel's epilepsy."

"Somehow I don't think the partner is that organized," Hotch replied. "Think about it. She called the police to come to the Tews' house, and then later went after Will trying to find Alaina. Why didn't she kill Alaina right there in the house that night?"

"Because she didn't know Alaina existed," JJ answered.

Hotch nodded. "Exactly. And then she didn't realize that 'Agent Jareau' was the female member of the couple; she didn't even know that Will had a wife and child. She went to the house armed with just a baseball bat. And Will said she seemed unsure about using even that."

"Why didn't she send her male partner after Will?" Rossi asked. "He certainly would have had no problem using pain to get the information he wanted."

"Maybe she's not really his partner," Blake posited. "Maybe she's was just trying to get information for him without his say-so."

"Then why call the police?" Morgan wondered. "If she's on his side, why bring the cops to the scene of his crime?"

Shaking his head, Hotch answered, "I haven't figured that one out yet. But I think it's time to give the profile.


	14. Waiting

**AN: This is a short filler chapter that I needed to get everyone into position for the grand finale. We're almost there**

In yet another new experience, the team found themselves giving the profile via Skype since the majority of the police to whom they were reporting were situated in various stations around the city. Garcia had set up a wide-lens camera in the hospital administrator's conference room which allowed the entire team to appear in one on-screen window. The two detectives who had reported to the hospital were present, as was the head of hospital security, but everyone else was watching online. Hotch began.

"The person that we're looking for is a white man between the ages of 25 and 40. He has some connection to the medical field, although it is highly unlikely that he is a physician."

Morgan continued. "The expression 'I'm worth more' indicates that someone in his life has suggested to him, either directly or indirectly, that he is worthless or unimportant. Chances are that he works a menial or undervalued job."

"Don't make the mistake of thinking this makes him weak physically or mentally," Rossi interjected. "The fact that he was able to incapacitate young adults with a single knife thrust indicates that he has a lot of upper body strength. And the amount of forethought that has gone into his attacks could only come from an organized, thoughtful individual."

Blake said, "At the same time, he is experiencing a lot of rage. He has his entire sense of self-worth invested emotionally in these attacks. He's not going to give up easily, because these murders make him feel like a worthwhile individual."

One of the police detectives who was present in the conference room with them asked a question. "What does that mean for us?"

"It means he has no intention of stopping anytime soon," Hotch explained. "He believes that the people he is killing have slighted him in some way. However, the insults are solely in the mind of the perpetrator. They're not something that would be obvious to an observer, or to the victims themselves."

"He may have been cut off in traffic or had to wait in line longer than he thought he should," clarified Blake.

"Then no one is safe," said the detective who had asked the question.

"Basically, no," Rossi agreed.

At the end of the profile, the hospital administrator asked to speak with Hotch and Rossi privately. "Agents, I appreciate your need for medical personnel, and I understand that you have paid some of my people to work for you during their off-hours. However . . . " He paused, seeming unsure how to continue.

Rossi finished the sentence for him. "However, you are in the middle of an emergency situation, and you need all hands on deck to deal with the evacuation."

The administrator sighed in relief. "Exactly. You understand."

"We do," Hotch granted. "We will send both of the doctors and Nurse Stephanie back down immediately. Would it be alright if we kept Michael? Dr. Reid is still in a fragile state, medically, and we need a nurse on duty."

"Of course. Thank you."

"Thank you," Rossi corrected. "You have been extremely helpful to us."

"In fact, I'll send a few of my agents down to help with the evacuation," Hotch offered. "Unfortunately we are at a point where there isn't a whole lot we can do on the case until there's some sort of break."

As the team got on the elevator to go upstairs and regroup, Rossi commented, "And we all know what 'some sort of break' means."

"It means we're waiting for someone else to die," said Hotch glumly.

Once upstairs, Hotch did a quick debriefing with the team, and then sent the two doctors, Nurse Stephanie, and Morgan, Rossi and Blake back down to help the exodus from the hospital. JJ had gone into the bedroom to check on Will, and despite both their claims of being "just fine" the couple had fallen asleep on one of the beds. Hotch set the three children at the dining room table with paper and crayons, instructing them to make get well cards for "Uncle Spencer" and hoping the task would keep them busy for a little while. While he was getting them settled he noticed Garcia walk through with her laptop in her hands and enter Reid's bedroom. Wondering what the two were doing, he followed her.

"I don't think it's a good idea, Boy Wonder," Garcia was saying as he entered.

"What isn't a good idea?" Hotch asked.

Garcia spun around looking like a little kid caught lifting a purloined candy bar off the grocery store shelf. "Oh, sir. It's you. You're here. In Reid's room. I was just . . . um . . . ."

"Garcia, stop sounding so guilty," Reid suggested. "You're not doing anything wrong. I asked her to come in here, Hotch. I'm trying to convince her to let me look at the security tapes from the hospital."

The unit chief took a long look at the agent lying on the bed. If anything he looked worse than he had the day before. The bruising on the left side of his face had deepened and was turning green around the edges. The swelling had gone down a little, allowing him to open his eye, but Hotch doubted if he could actually see very much through the bloodshot orb. The unbruised skin on his face was even paler than usual, and the natural dark circle under his good eye had darkened so much it looked like another bruise.

Reid sensed that Hotch was about to turn down his request and tried to make himself look as healthy as possible. To that end he pressed the button that raised the head of the bed until he was in a sitting position. The attempt backfired, however, as he was unable to stop a cry from escaping his lips as his broken ribs and shoulder blade shifted. He dropped the remote instinctively and curled his right arm around the bindings holding the left one to his chest. Squeezing his eyes shut, he took a deep breath, which started him coughing. Michael, who had been standing out of the way by the window, came over and eased Reid back down onto the bed. He took a vial off of the table and started filling a syringe.

"What is that?" Hotch asked.

"A sedative. Dr. Grosso said if he wasn't going to use the morphine and the painkillers we were giving him weren't sufficient, then it would be better to let him sleep off some of the pain."

"I'm alright," Reid protested weakly in between coughs and gasps. "I'm fine. Please, Hotch, I don't want them to knock me out. I want to help catch this Unsub."

Hotch was torn. He understood all too well the desire to ignore your injuries and focus on a case, but at the same time he was Reid's superior, and he didn't want the young man causing himself further harm. He was about to tell Michael to go ahead with the medication when Reid got control of his breathing and was able to state his position more forcefully. "Look, Hotch, you and the doctor want me to rest. If you let me watch the videos, I promised you I will lie here quietly and not move. My body can recover while my brain is prevented from going stir crazy from boredom."

Garcia attempted the motherly approach. "You know, sweetness, your brain won't be bored if you're asleep."

"Actually, that's not true," Reid countered. "Since a sedative tends to dampen Z-wave activity, thus preventing REM sleep from occurring, it is entirely possible that my brain could be even more bored on the sedative than it is when I'm awake."

Hotch figured if Reid was feeling healthy enough to debate about brainwaves, he was probably healthy enough to watch some video footage. "All right, Reid, you win. Garcia, set up the laptop for him. But when you get tired, you go to sleep," he ordered.

"Yes, sir," Reid replied meekly, but a half-grin snuck onto his face.

Michael put the syringe back on the table. "If there isn't anything useful I can be doing, I'm going to go take a nap. I didn't get much sleep last night."

"No, that's fine, Michael," Hotch told him. "We sent the other medical personnel down to help with the evacuation, but we wanted you to stay up here in case we needed you."

"Of course," Michael replied. "I'll be in the bedroom where I was last night."

By that time Garcia had the laptop up and running. She gingerly placed it on Reid's lap. "Click here to change cameras," she said, pointing to the screen. "This is your time stamp, and these let you play backward and forward."

"I got it," Reid assured her. "Go do tech stuff. I'm fine."

Back in the main part of the apartment the three children were still hard at work on their get well cards, so Hotch went down to Garcia's lair with her. "Have you found anyone who was working or visiting here last night who has a connection to the campus medical center?" he asked.

"The problem is not finding someone with a connection," she informed him. "The problem is narrowing down the multitudes of people who have a connection. Apparently the medical community in D.C. is more like a small town than a large city. Everyone is linked to everyone else. Seriously, Kevin Bacon would feel right at home."

Hotch just looked at her for a moment, then shook his head. "I don't want to understand," he decided. "Keep looking. There's something there somewhere."

"Aye, mon capitan."


	15. You Might be an Unsub if

When things started to go wrong, they went wrong at an amazing pace. One moment Hotch was handing the children peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and juice boxes for their lunch; the next minute, chaos broke out.

First, Reid called Hotch from his room. "Hotch, come in here. You need to see this."

True to his word about staying still, Reid was sitting in the same position as when Hotch had left him. He spun the computer on his lap so that Hotch could see the screen and clicked the touch pad a couple of times. After adjusting the monitor, Hotch saw the elevator next to the surgical waiting room. The doors slid open, and a man in surgical scrubs walked out and disappeared off screen. "You see?" Reid asked eagerly.

Hotch sighed. He hated to disappoint the young agent who obviously only wanted to be helpful. "Reid, I'm sorry, but Garcia already saw the Unsub getting off the elevator. He gets back on again in a few minutes with blood all over himself. Unfortunately, there's no way to tell who he is; his entire body is covered, including his face."

Halfway through Hotch's speech Reid's right hand had started flapping in the air like an angry bird. "No, no, no, not the man. The elevator. Don't you see the elevator?"

Aaron Hotchner knew that he was a college educated, highly intelligent man, with many years of experience as both a lawyer and an agent, but sometimes when he was dealing with Spencer Reid he felt like a five-year-old learning to read for the first time. He could tell that there was something there that he should be able to decipher, but he had no idea what it was. "You're going to have to be more specific, Reid."

"The elevator!" Reid tapped the screen with his finger.

Hotch stilled Reid's hand with his own, concerned that the injured man was going to cause himself further harm if he didn't calm down. "Reid! Tell me – slowly – what exactly about the elevator is it that you want me to see?"

Reid forced himself to take a deep breath, despite the spasm in his ribs when he did so. "The buttons. Look at the call buttons." Reid pulled his hand away from Hotch's and tapped the touch pad, starting the sequence over again. Hotch watched carefully. He saw the "down" button light up; twenty seconds later the Unsub stepped out. Hotch threw up his hands in exasperation.

"I see it, Reid, but I still don't understand."

"Hotch, the surgical suite is on the third floor. The elevator was going down when it opened there. That means that whoever was on the elevator had to be coming from a floor above the third. And the only floor above the third . . . "

" . . . is this one," Hotch and Reid said together.

At that moment an alarm started blaring. Both men jumped instinctively, which caused Reid to cry out in pain. The laptop slid off his legs and crashed to the floor. Simultaneously Hotch's cell phone began buzzing. "What the hell?" Hotch exclaimed before grabbing the phone and putting it to his ear. "Hotchner," he snapped, bringing his other hand up to block out the cacophony of sound so he could hear. "Morgan. Understood. Get everybody that's left out of the building. We'll deal with things up here." He clicked the phone off and put it back in his pocket. "Reid!" He practically had to shout to be heard over the blaring alarm. "Do you think you can walk?"

Reid looked at him like he'd asked him if he thought he could fly. "Sure. I mean, maybe. I don't know. Is it important?"

"I'm afraid so. We're going to have to evacuate the building. It's on fire."

"Hotch?" Garcia's voice carried over the alarm from the outside room. She sounded uncertain, maybe even afraid. "We need you to come out here now, please."

"Stay here," Hotch ordered Reid. He drew his gun and stepped carefully out into the living room, leaving Reid to agonize over the situation alone.

Automatically Hotch's eyes went first to the table where the children were gathered. They were unhurt, but were all staring at something to Hotch's left. He snapped his attention to that side of the room and saw why Garcia had called for him. Michael had his arm firmly around her neck with a knife pressed tightly against her throat. She stared at Hotch with terror in her eyes.

"Put down the gun! Put it down or, I swear to God, I'll cut her throat!" Michael's voice was high-pitched and panicky.

Hotch immediately put his hands into the air, his gun pointing toward the ceiling. "Okay. Take it easy, Michael. Nobody needs to get hurt here. Just let her go and we can talk about this."

"Let her go?" The armed man was screaming. "You want me to fucking let her go?" After what she saw? After what she said? Why the hell would I let her go?"

Hotch could see the muscles in the arm around Garcia's neck bunching. He needed to calm Michael down before he cut the woman, intentionally or not. "Alright, Michael. Let's start with something easier. Can we let the children go? They have nothing to do with any of this."

Will and JJ came out of their room having no idea about the drama take was taking place. "Good grief, Hotch, what's with the alarm?" JJ asked. "We were dead asleep and then . . . "

"Shut up! Shut up! I need to think. I just need . . . where' s the key?"

Turning toward Michael with a confused look, JJ started to ask what he was talking about when she was stopped by Will's hand on her arm. "Jennifer, I think we have problem out here."

JJ drew her sidearm and aimed it toward Michael.

"Where's the fucking key?" Michael cried. He pulled Garcia around, his eyes jerking between Hotch and the LaMontagnes. His arm tightened, and a thin red line appeared beneath the knife, the blood trickling down Garcia's neck.

"Sir?" Garcia's voice shook.

"She's bleeding!" Jack called out. "Dad that man cut Aunt Penny."

At the sight of the blood, Alaina jumped up from the table, knocking her chair to the floor with a crash, and backed into a corner of the room. When her back hit the wall she slid down until she was sitting on the floor with her arms wrapped around her knees. A keening wail emanated from the young girl as she squeezed her eyes shut and started rocking back and forth.

"Everyone quiet!" Hotch roared. The situation was getting progressively out of control, and he needed to take command before someone got seriously hurt. Thankfully the fire alarm stopped blaring. In the relative quiet, Hotch took charge. "Will, JJ, take the children into the bedroom. Lock the door and keep them safe."

"Wait just a minute," Michael demanded, but Hotch chose to ignore him.

"JJ, take them."

JJ holstered her weapon, herded Jack and Henry over to Will and then picked up Alaina from the floor. The girl was still weeping, but it was less hysterical now. With a single glance back at her boss, JJ followed her husband into the bedroom and shut the door. The sound of the lock clicking echoed in the sudden silence.

"What do you think you're doing?" Michael asked, but his voice, too, was less hysterical than it had been.

"Michael, you said you needed time to think. That seems extremely reasonable to me. Here's the key to the elevator." Hotch pulled the key out of his pocket and placed it on the back of the couch. "I'm going to empty my gun, and then I'm going to leave it here with you." Hotch pulled the cartridge out of his gun and put it down next to the key. He put the bullets in his pocket and raised his hands back up to show they were empty. "Now, you're going to let Garcia go, and she and I are going to go into Reid's room."

"Why would I do that?" Michael asked, but it sounded more like a legitimate question than a threat.

"Because you have no reason not to. There's nowhere we can go. We're on the fourth floor, and there's no way out of the room except through this door. There's no way into or out of the apartment except for the elevator, and you have the key. It's hard to keep a knife at someone's throat for any length of time; your arm is probably already feeling pretty tired."

As if on cue, Michael's arm faltered as he realized how exhausted he was. "I need time to think," he repeated.

"You can have all the time you need," Hotch offered calmly. "Just let Garcia come over here, and we'll leave you alone."

"What about them?" Michael asked, nodding his head toward the room where JJ and Will had taken the children. "She had a gun."

"You can block the door shut from out here. Nobody's going to bother you. I promise."

Michael seemed to need to believe what Hotch had to say. He dropped his arm and gave Garcia a little push. She didn't need much encouragement to stumble across the room to Hotch's side. Without taking his eyes off of Michael, Hotch put his arm around her and pulled her into Reid's room, shutting the door.

Garcia wrapped her arms around the unit leader and burst into tears. "Oh my God, Hotch, oh my God, I heard him yelling at someone in Morgan's room and I went in to see if everything was okay. He was standing there shouting at someone on his cell phone that he was going to handle everything, and there was a pile of bloody sheets and clothes on the floor, and I told him I was going to have to call the police, and he pulled out that ridiculously large knife and, oh my God, Hotch, I think Michael might be the Unsub!"


End file.
